GIFT   OF 
MICHAEL  REESE 


TRANS  ATLANTIC   HISTORICAL 
SOLIDARITY 


TRANS-ATLANTIC 
HISTORICAL  SOLIDARITY 

LECTURES  DELIVERED  BEFORE  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  OXFORD  IN  EASTER 

AND  TRINITY  TERMS  1913 


BY 


CHARLES    FRANCIS     ADAMS 


OXFORD 

AT    THE    CLARENDON    PRESS 
1913 


OXFORD  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

LONDON     EDINBURGH     GLASGOW     NEW     YORK 

TORONTO     MELBOURNE     BOMBAY 

HUMPHREY  MILFOED 

PUBLISHER  TO  THE  UMVERSITT 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

INTRODUCTORY         ....  9 

I.  PRINCIPIA .25 

II.  THE  CONFEDERATE  COTTON  CAMPAIGN,  LANCASHIRE, 

1861-62    ....  ...       55 

III.  Dis  ALITER  VISUM 85 

IV7   A  GREAT  HISTORICAL  CHARACTER  AND  VAE  VICTIS     131 
INDEX     .  181 


285500 


'  There  is  apparently  much  truth  in  the  belief  that  the 
wonderful  progress  of  the  United  States,  as  well  as  the 
character  of  the  people,  are  the  results  of  natural  selection ; 
for  the  more  energetic,  restless,  and  courageous  men  from  all 
parts  of  Europe  have  emigrated  during  the  last  ten  or  twelve 
generations  to  that  great  country,  and  have  there  succeeded 
best.  Looking  to  the  distant  future,  I  do  not  think  that  the 
Rev.  Mr.  Zincke  takes  an  exaggerated  view  when  he  says : 
"All  other  series  of  events — as  that  which  resulted  in  the 
culture  of  mind  in  Greece,  and  that  which  resulted  in  the 
empire  of  Rome — only  appear  to  have  purpose  and  value 
when  viewed  in  connexion  with,  or  rather  as  subsidiary 
to  ...  the  great  stream  of  Anglo-Saxon  emigration  to  the 
west.'" — DARWIN,  The  Descent  of  Man,  Chapter  V. 


INTRODUCTORY 


INTRODUCTORY ' 

THE  Annual   Lectures,  of  which   the   following  is 
the  Second  Course,  were  only  recently  provided  for, 
largely  through  the  influence   of   Oxford   professors 
and  instructors  who,  in  pursuance  of  their  calling,  had 
on  invitation  visited  America.     They  are  an  outcome 
of  the  great  Rhodes   Scholarship  Foundation.     Last 
year    Mr.     James    Ford    Rhodes,     the    well-known 
American   historian,    bearing    the    same   patronymic 
but  in  no  way  connected   with    the   South   African 
notability,  was  selected — and  most  properly  selected 
—to  initiate  the  Lectureship.     This  he  did,  delivering 
three  lectures,  since  published  in  book  form.2     When 
invited    to    deliver    the    course     in     succession     to 
Mr.    Rhodes,    I   was   informed   that    the   number   of 
lectures  was  a  matter  resting  with  me,  with  a  single 
limitation :    I  was  not  to  discourse  on  history  in  the 
abstract,    or    on   historical    themes    in    general,    but 
confine    myself   to    American    history    or   American 
historical  topics  ; — a  restriction   which   wholly   com 
mended  itself  to  my  own  judgement.     After  giving 
the  matter  as  careful  consideration  as  was  then  in  my 
power,  I  decided  on  a  course  of  four  lectures.     I  did 
not  see  how  in  any  less  space  I  could  deal  properly 

1  From  the  Proceedings  of  the  Massachusetts  Historical  Society 
for  June,  1913.     Vol.  46,  pp.  432-40. 

2  Lectures  on  the  American  Civil  War.     The  Macmillan  Com 
pany,  1913. 

1593  B 


10  INTRODUCTORY 

with  the  topics  which  suggested  themselves ;  in  fact, 
as  the  result  showed,  six  or  seven  or  even  eight 
lectures  would  have  scarcely  sufficed  for  their  proper 
treatment. 

Naturally,  during  the  winter  of  1912-13,  between 
the  acceptance  of  the  invitation  and  my  sailing  for 
England,  the  subject  was  more  or  less  constantly  in 
my  mind.  Passing  the  season  in  Washington,  it  was, 
also,  my  fortune  to  see  a  good  deal  of  Mr.  James 
Bryce,  then  British  Ambassador.  Mr.  Bryce,  more 
over,  evinced  a  very  considerable  interest  in  my 
proposed  course,  having  for  many  years  been  himself 
an  Oxford  lecturer.  One  day,  when  taking  a  long 
stroll  together  through  the  streets  of  Washington,  he 
took  occasion  to  inquire  as  to  the  topics  with  which 
I  proposed  to  deal,  and  my  method  of  treatment. 
I  at  once  told  him  that  my  main  thesis  would  be 
certain  phases  of  what  we  in  America  term  '  The 
Civil  War' — that  is,  the  struggle  which,  convulsing 
the  United  States,  attracted  the  attention  of  the  whole 
civilized  world  during  the  four  years  between  April, 
1861,  and  April,  1865.  I  was  surprised,  and  some 
what  taken  aback  by  what  followed.  In  the  gentlest 
possible  way — most  diplomatically,  I  might  say — 
Mr.  Bryce  proceeded  to  intimate  that  I  would  pro 
bably  find  an  English  audience  of  the  present 
generation,  especially  an  Oxford  lecture  audience, 
quite  uninformed  on  everything  connected  with  our 
Civil  War ;  which,  indeed,  had  now  become  to  the 
people  of  Great  Britain  somewhat  remotely  historical. 
In  other  words,  it  was  implied  that  our  great 


INTHODUCTOHY  11 

American  conflict  of  half  a  century  back,  which 
looms  so  large  in  American  memory,  had  quite  passed 
out  of  English  recollection,  and  there  takes  its  place 
with  other  episodes  of  a  character  more  or  less 
important  which  have  since  occupied,  and,  at  the 
moment,  perhaps  engrossed  public  attention.  Occur 
ring  at  different  times  and  in  many  countries,  these, 
Mr.  Bryce  intimated,  had  now  followed  each  other 
into  oblivion ;  and  our  great  ordeal  had  proved  no 
exception  to  the  general  rule. 

Time  hath,  my  lord,  a  wallet  on  his  back, 
Wherein  he  puts  alms  for  oblivion  ; 

and,  so  far  as  an  Oxford  audience  was  concerned,  to 
Time's  wallet  I  found  my  topic  by  high  authority 
comfortably  assigned. 

While,  however,  conveying  to  me  in  guarded  terms 
this  not  altogether  palatable  intimation,  Mr.  Bryce 
added  the  qualifying  remark  that  at  the  time — that 
is,  during  the  period  between  1861  and  1865,  he  then 
being  a  recent  Oxford  graduate — the  incidents  of  the 
struggle  as  it  progressed  had  excited  deeper  interest  in 
England,  especially  in  social  and  political  circles  in 
London  and  Oxford,  than  any  event  of  a  similar 
character  which  has  since  occurred.  He  even  went  so 
far  as  to  say  that  so  intense  was  the  interest  felt  over 
that  struggle,  the  numerous  partisans  of  the  South 
arraying  themselves  against  the  few  who  sympathized 
with  the  North,  that  discussions  were  discouraged. 
At  the  dinner  table,  for  instance,  passages  occurred 
marked  by  acrimony  and  even  rudeness.  The  ordi 
nary  social  amenities  were  altogether  too  frequently 


12  INTRODUCTORY 

disregarded. l  This  he  distinctly  recalled ;  and  what 
he  said  confirmed  my  own  personal,  and  in  some 
connexions  my  own  irritating,  recollection. 

There  was,  however,  another  observation  of  Mr. 
Bryce,  made  by  him  on  the  same  or  some  similar 
occasion,  to  which  also  I  must  now  refer.  He  inti 
mated,  again  in  diplomatic  fashion,  a  decided  doubt 
whether  the  conflict  in  question  would,  as  an  historical 
episode  and  incident  in  the  great  evolutionary  record, 
hereafter  loomup  in  the  same  large  proportions  it  always 
must  bear  in  the  minds  of  those  of  the  American  gen 
eration  directly  concerned  in  it — the  generation  to 
which  I  personally  belong.  The  issues,  he  more  than 
hinted,  were  in  his  judgement  either  of  no  great  funda 
mental  importance,  or,  in  the  case  of  slavery,  already 
foregone  conclusions  ;  and  the  personages  who  figured 
in  the  struggle  would,  he  thought,  become  less  and  less 
considered  with  the  lapse  of  time.  Finally,  he  more 
than  implied  a  personal  belief  that  the  memorials  we 
had  created  to  them  would  not  infrequently  call  for 
explanation. 

This  was  to  me  a  novel  point  of  view ;  and  then, 
and  subsequently  while  preparing  my  lectures  in 
London,  I  gave  no  inconsiderable  thought  to  it.  After 
all,  might  it  not  be  as  Mr.  Bryce  said  ?  Nations,  like 
individuals,  are  always  prone  to  magnify  themselves 
and  the  importance  of  events  in  which  they  have  been 
concerned.  Above  all,  going  to  Oxford  to  deliver 
a  course  of  lectures,  to  a  degree  international  in 
character,  it  behoved  me  to  avoid  anything  which 
1  See  Note  1,  p.  18. 


INTRODUCTORY  13 

might  seem  grandiose — the  eagle  must  emit  no 
semblance  even  of  a  scream !  On  this  score,  therefore, 
Mr.  Bryce's  intimations  gave  rise  in  me  to  no  little 
perplexity,  and,  subsequently,  imposed  a  very  con 
siderable  amount  of  labour,  revisionary  in  character. 
In  fact,  I  threw  aside  nearly  all  the  material  prepared 
in  America,  and,  starting  afresh,  groped  my  way,  so  to 
speak,  as  I  went  on,  all  the  while  studying  a  British 
environment.  As  finally  delivered,  therefore,  my 
lectures  were  in  purport  altogether  different  from  those 
I  had  proposed  to  deliver.  Still,  in  the  close  I  wholly 
failed  in  one  respect  to  concur  in  Mr.  Bryce's  judge 
ment  ;  for  the  more  I  reflected  on  the  matter  from  the 
point  of  view  he  had  suggested,  the  more  I  felt  con 
vinced  that,  as  the  years  rolled  by  and  the  generations 
passed  on,  the  conflict  he  had  referred  to  as  now 
forgotten  in  Europe  would  assume  ever  larger  world- 
proportions  and  become  matter  of  more  careful  general 
study.  In  a  word,  our  American  Civil  War  would, 
when  the  final  verdict  is  rendered,  loom  large,  and 
become  an  accepted  episode  of  first-class  and  world 
wide  moment.  Its  broad  dramatic  features  will  also 
be  recognized. 

This  spirit  more  and  more  possessing  me,  I  prepared 
the  following  lectures  in  the  course  of  their  delivery. 
So  far  as  the  issues  involved  in  our  struggle,  and  in 
some  cases  therein  decided,  were  concerned,  I  felt 
I  was  teaching  school.  Of  those  issues  I  found  my 
self  impelled  to  emphasize  at  least  three.  First  was 
the  process  and  consummation  of  a  national  crystal 
lization.  The  formal  entry  on  the  world-stage  of 


14  INTKODUCTOEY 

a  power  admittedly  of  the  first  class — whether 
Prussia,  Italy,  Germany  or  the  United  States — is  not, 
I  submit,  an  incident  of  secondary  historical  impor 
tance.  It  is  not  likely  to  be  ignored  by  the  historian, 
much  less  forgotten.  Such,  however,  was  the  direct 
outcome  of  our  American  War.  The  next  issue  of 
importance  decided  in  that  conflict — Chattel  Human 
ity — was  also  a  world-issue,  which  goes  back  to  the 
very  beginning — literally,  to  the  Book  of  Genesis ; 
for,  to  any  one  at  all  acquainted  with  even  scriptural 
narrative,  the  fact  that  human  servitude  has  existed 
from  the  commencement  admits  of  no  question.  That 
in  1860  slavery  as  an  institution  was  becoming  subject 
to  greater  and  greater  recognized  limitations  is  indis 
putable  ;  as  also  that  among  the  nations  of  the  world 
of  more  advanced  civilization  it  had  ceased  to  exist. 
That  it  was  then  a  doomed  system  we  now  see.  So 
far  as  the  African  was  concerned,  however,  down  to 
1862  negro  slavery  was  a  recognized  and  accepted 
institution,  certain  exceptional  countries  alone  having 
outlawed  it.  Lincoln's  Proclamation  of  Emancipation, 
one  of  the  most  dramatic  acts  in  the  history  of  man 
kind,  thus  literally  struck  from  man  the  shackles  of 
chattelism,  irrespective  of  race  or  hue.  This  I  submit 
was  another  by  no  means  inconsiderable  outcome,  and 
one  not  likely  to  be  permanently  forgotten.2 

Nor  was  the  next  issue  of  less  importance  than 
those  already  specified :  I  refer  to  the  world- 
movement  towards  what  is  now  known  as  Democracy. 
That  issue  was  very  directly  involved  in  our  struggle. 

2  See  Note  2,  p.  19. 


INTRODUCTORY  15 

This  no  more  admits  of  denial  than  that  Democracy 
is  an  issue  now  much  in  evidence  in  European  as  well 
as  American  political  activities,  and  more  especially 
in  those  of  Great  Britain.  It  may  be  described  in 
fact  as  the  political  issue  of  to-day,  tending  toward 
Collectivism,  as  it  is  called,  and  through  that  to 
Socialism.  That  this  tendency  received  a  pronounced 
impetus  as  one  of  the  outcomes  of  our  war,  I  take  to 
be  so  indisputable  as  to  call  merely  for  mention.3 
Posterity  will  probably  have  occasion  to  bear  the  fact 
freshly  in  mind. 

Thus,  Mr.  Bryce  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding, 
as  I  meditated  the  matter  in  London  no  less  than 
three  issues  of  Trans- Atlantic  Historical  Solidarity  of 
first-class  historical  significance  suggested  themselves 
for  my  Oxford  course  ;  first,  United  States  nationality  ; 
second,  the  end  of  slavery,  or  property  in  man  ;  third, 
the  evolution,  if  it  may  be  so  called,  of  Democracy. 
These,  moreover,  were  what  may  be  described  as  civil 
issues  only.  But  when  it  came  to  military  and  naval 
considerations,  the  importance  of  the  struggle  was  no 
less  marked.  In  fact,  it  there  assumed  largest  im 
mediate  proportions  and  an  emphasis  most  drama 
tically  pronounced  ;  for,  whether  by  sea  or  by  land,  it 
revolutionized  warfare.  As  respects  maritime  opera 
tions,  this  admitted  of  no  sort  of  question.  The 
British  navy  of  the  Crimean  war  passed  out  of 
existence,  and  was  consigned,  so  to  speak,  to  the  junk 
heap,  when  the  old-style  United  States  40-gun  steam 
frigate  Merrimac,  crudely  remodelled  into  a  nonde- 
3  See  Note  3,  p.  21. 


16  INTRODUCTORY 

script  iron-shedded  Confederate  floating  battery  and 
steam-ram,  now  called  the  Virginia,  made  its  way 
from  Norfolk  to  Fortress  Monroe  in  early  March, 
1862,  there  unexpectedly  encountering  the  newly 
devised  armoured  and  turreted  United  States  steam- 
battery  Monitor.  Before  that  aifair  the  navies  of  the 
world  were  made  up  of  wooden  sailing-ships  with, 
perhaps,  auxiliary  steam-power;  out  of  it  emerged 
the  super-Dreadnought.  A  revolution  in  naval  archi 
tecture  and  tactics  had  in  a  single  day  been 
worked  no  less  radical  than  that  brought  about 
by  Drake  and  the  British  mariners  through  their 
windward  manoeuvring  in  the  conflict  with  the 
Spanish  Armada  three  hundred  years  before.  It  is 
no  exaggeration  to  say  that  the  action  in  Hampton 
Roads  in  March,  1862,  bore  the  same  relation  to 
the  attack  of  the  combined  British-French  fleets  on 
the  defences  of  Sebastopol  in  October,  1854,  that  the 
destruction  of  the  Armada  in  1588  bore  to  the  battle 
of  Lepanto  in  1571. 

It  was,  moreover,  the  same  in  military  operations. 
During  our  war,  as  other  nations  have  since  learned, 
the  discovery  and  application  of  the  breechloader  and 
magazine  gun  rendered  frontal  attacks,  assuming 
opponents  in  some  degree  equally  matched,  impossible 
of  success.  The  tactics  of  Napoleon  were  remitted  to 
the  past  of  Alexander. 

Thus,  in  spite  of  the  doubts  suggested  by  Mr. 
Bryce,  my  more  mature  reflection  satisfied  me  that  it 
was  fairly  a  matter  of  question  whether  any  conflict 
ever  waged  between  men  on  earth  had  been  more 


INTEODUCTOEY  17 

momentous,  and  fruitful  of  results  both  immediate 
and  remote,  than  that  in  which,  between  1861  and 
1865,  it  had  been  given  me  to  participate. 

It  was  with  this  conviction  I  warmed  to  my  work, 
feeling  my  way,  so  to  speak,  as  I  went  along;  for 
after  reaching  London  it  was  forced  upon  me  that 
I  was  addressing  an  audience  quite  uninformed  on  the 
subjects  with  which  I  was  to  deal,  and  little  interested 
therein.  Historically  and  otherwise  the  minds  of 
those  composing  it  were  intent  on  events  either  of 
the  more  remote  past  or  now  elsewhere  in  progress. 
Their  faces  were  turned  to  the  East.  In  a  word,  so 
far  as  the  prescribed  subject  of  my  course  was  con 
cerned,  my  listeners  had  to  be  educated,  starting  with 
the  elementary. 

My  effort,  therefore,  throughout  was  to  develop  the 
close,  at  times  the  dramatic,  connexion  of  the  events 
with  which  I  dealt  with  the  history  proper  of  those 
I  addressed,  or  with  history  at  the  moment  making. 
I  selected  accordingly ;  with  what  degree  of  success 
remains  to  be  passed  upon  by  others.  The  ordeal, 
I  freely  confess,  I  had  not  anticipated ;  nor  would  I 
care  to  be  called  upon  again  to  face  one  similar.  In 
passing  through  it,  moreover,  I  found  myself  com 
pelled  to  omit,  as  impossible  of  condensation  and  use 
within  the  time  allotted  me,  a  large  amount  of 
material  very  necessary,  from  my  point  of  view,  to 
a  correct  understanding  of  the  topics  with  which  I 
dealt.  The  matter  thus  put  aside  was  indeed  fully 
equal  in  amount  to  that  used.  A  portion  of  it  is  in 
cluded  in  the  present  publication.  My  object  has 


18  INTRODUCTORY 

been  to  impress  such  as  may  study  this,  the  second 
course  in  the  Oxford  American  Lectureship,  with 
a  sense  not  only  of  the  importance  of  our  American 
history  in  connexion  with  that  of  Great  Britain,  of 
Europe,  and  of  mankind,  but  of  the  far-reaching 
world- wide  influence  it  both  has  already  exerted  and 
is  manifestly  destined  hereafter  to  exert. 


NOTE  1,  PAGE  12. 

'  There  was  a  time  when,  in  the  great  American  Civil  War, 
the  sympathies  of  the  English  upper  classes  went  with 
slavery,  and  when  the  North  had  scant  justice  and  no  mercy 
at  their  hands.  I  have  myself  seen  that  most  distinguished 
man,  Charles  Francis  Adams,  subjected  in  society  to  treat 
ment  which,  if  he  had  resented  it,  might  have  seriously 
imperilled  the  relations  of  the  two  countries ;  and  which 
nothing  but  the  wonderful  self-command  of  a  very  strong 
man.  and  his  resolute  determination  to  stifle  all  personal 
feeling,  and  to  consider  himself  only  as  the  Minister  of 
a  great  country,  enabled  him  to  treat,  as  he  did,  with  mute 
disdain.  But  in  this  critical  state  of  things  in  and  out  of 
Parliament,  Mr.  Disraeli  and  Sir  Stafford  Northcotc  on  one 
side,  and  the  Duke  of  Argyll  and  Sir  George  Cornewall 
Lewis  on  the  other,  mainly  contributed  to  keep  this  country 
neutral,  and  to  save  us  from  the  ruinous  mistake  of  taking 
part  with  the  South.'  (Quoted  in  Andrew  Lang's  Life, 
Letters,  and  Diaries  of  tiir  Stafford  Northcote,  First  Earl  of 
Iddelsleiyh,  p.  113,  from  an  article  by  Lord  Chief  Justice 
Coleridge  in  Macmillaris  Magazine,  January,  1888.) 

'  Assuming,  however,  that  they  did  understand  this,  there 
is  still  a  good  deal  to  be  explained  about  the  state  of  English 
opinion  which  it  is  rather  hard  to  put  plainly  to  them. 
I  really  don't  know  how  to  translate  into  civil  language  what 
I  have  heard  a  thousand  times  over  in  England  that  both 
sides  are  such  a  set  of  snobs  and  blackguards  that  we  only 


INTRODUCTORY  19 

wish  they  could  both  be  licked  ;  or  that  their  armies  are  the 
scum  of  the  earth,  and  the  war  got  up  by  contractors  ;  or  that 
the  race  is  altogether  degenerate  and  demoralized,  and  it  is 
pleasant  to  see  such  a  set  of  bullies  have  a  fall.  I  really 
can't  tell  them  all  these  little  compliments,  which  I  have 
heard  in  private  conversation  word  for  word,  and  which  are 
a  free  translation  of  Times  and  Saturday  Review,  even 
if  I  introduce  them  with  [the]  apology  (though  it  is  a  really 
genuine  apology)  that  we  know  nothing  at  all  about  them." 
(From  a  letter  to  his  mother,  Lady  Stephen,  written  by 
Leslie  Stephen  from  Washington,  in  September,  1863. 
Quoted  by  Prof.  Maitland  in  the  Life  and  Letters  of  Leslie 
,  p.  12.2.) 


NOTE  2,  PAGE  14. 

The  issue  of  Fraser's  Magazine  for  February,  1862, 
contained  (pp.  257-68)  a  paper  by  John  Stuart  Mill 
entitled  '  The  Contest  in  America  '.  It  is  to  be  borne 
in  mind  that  Mr.  Mill  in  preparing  this  paper  wrote 
eight  months  before  President  Lincoln  made  the 
earliest  announcement  of  his  intention  to  issue  a  Pro 
clamation  of  Emancipation,  and  at  a  time  when  a  large 
and  influential  party  in  Great  Britain  insisted  upon  it 
that  neither  slavery  nor  the  emancipation  of  the  slave 
in  any  way  entered  as  a  considerable  factor  into  the 
struggle  then  going  on  in  America.  With  singular 
foresight  and  sagacity,  and  a  remarkable  insight  into 
the  American  situation,  Mr.  Mill  observed  in  this 
paper  : 

'  But  the  parties  in  a  protracted  civil  war  almost  invariably 
end  by  taking  more  extreme,  not  to  say  higher  grounds  of 
principle,  than  they  began  with.  Middle  parties  and  friends 
of  compromise  are  soon  left  behind  ;  and  if  the  writers  who  so 


20  INTRODUCTORY 

severely  criticize  the  present  moderation  of  the  Free-soilers 
are  desirous  to  see  the  war  become  an  abolition  war,  it  is 
probable  that  if  the  war  lasts  long  enough  they  will  be 
gratified.  Without  the  smallest  pretension  to  see  farther  into 
futurity  than  other  people,  I  at  least  have  foreseen  and  fore 
told  from  the  first,  that  if  the  South  were  not  promptly  put 
down,  the  contest  would  become  distinctly  an  anti-slavery 
one;  nor  do  I  believe  that  any  person,  accustomed  to  reflect 
on  the  course  of  human  affairs  in  troubled  times,  can  expect 
anything  else.  Those  who  have  read,  even  cursorily,  the 
most  valuable  testimony  to  which  the  English  public  have 
access,  concerning  the  real  state  of  affairs  in  America — the 
letters  of  the  Times  correspondent,  Mr.  Russell — must  have 
observed  how  early  and  rapidly  he  arrived  at  the  same  con 
clusion,  and  with  what  increasing  emphasis  he  now  continually 
reiterates  it.  In  one  of  his  recent  letters  he  names  the  end 
of  next  summer  as  the  period  by  which,  if  the  war  has  not 
sooner  terminated,  it  will  have  assumed  a  complete  anti-slavery 
character.  So  early  a  term  exceeds,  I  confess,  my  most 
sanguine  hopes ;  but  if  Mr.  Russell  be  right,  heaven  forbid 
that  the  war  should  cease  sooner,  for  if  it  lasts  till  then  it  is 
quite  possible  that  it  will  regenerate  the  American  people.  .  .  . 
As  long  as  justice  and  injustice  have  not  terminated  their 
ever- renewing  fight  for  ascendancy  in  the  affairs  of  mankind, 
human  beings  must  be  willing,  when  need  is,  to  do  battle  for 
the  one  against  the  other.  I  am  far  from  saying  that  the 
present  struggle,  on  the  part  of  the  Northern  Americans, 
is  wholly  of  this  exalted  character ;  that  it  has  arrived  at  the 
stage  of  being  altogether  a  war  for  justice,  a  war  of  principle. 
But  there  was  from  the  beginning,  and  now  is,  a  large 
infusion  of  that  element  in  it;  and  this  is  increasing,  will 
increase,  and  if  the  war  lasts,  will  in  the  end  predominate. 
Should  that  time  come,  not  only  will  the  greatest  enormity 
which  still  exists  among  mankind  as  an  institution  receive 
far  earlier  its  coup  de  grace  than  there  has  ever,  until  now, 
appeared  any  probability  of;  but  in  effecting  this  the  Free 
States  will  have  raised  themselves  to  that  elevated  position  in 
the  scale  of  morality  and  dignity,  which  is  derived  from  great 


INTBODUCTORY  21 

sacrifices  consciously  made  in  a  virtuous  cause,  and  the  sense 
of  an  inestimable  benefit  to  all  future  ages,  brought  about  by 
their  own  voluntary  efforts.' 

NOTE  3,  PAGE  15. 

In  the  early  months  of  1863,  following  the  Pro 
clamation  of  Emancipation  and  the  disasters  suffered 
by  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  while  under  the  com 
mand  of  General  Burnside,  who  had  replaced  General 
M°Clellan,  there  was  a  reactionary  wave  of  Con 
servatism  in  Great  Britain.  This  movement  and 
its  connexion  with  events  in  America  was  editorially 
referred  to  in  Blackwood's  Edinburgh  Magazine  for  Feb 
ruary,  1863,  as  follows : 

It  is  a  not  less  remarkable  feature  of  the  times  that  in 
politics  also  all  England  now  is  nearly  of  one  mind.  ...  It  is 
a  mistake  to  attribute  this  universal  Conservatism  to  the 
breakdown  of  democratic  institutions  in  America.  The 
"  Conservative  reaction  ",  to  adopt  the  common  but  exception 
able  phrase,  had  unmistakably  manifested  itself  before  a  single 
shot  had  been  fired  in  America — before  the  bloodless  bom 
bardment  of  Fort  Sumter  announced  the  approach  of  that 
deplorable  conflict  which  has  served  to  expose  Democracy  in 
its  worst  and  most  contemptible  form,  and  to  reveal,  in  the 
bosom  of  republican  America,  a  mass  of  corruption,  imbeci 
lity,  meanness,  and  malignity,  which,  taken  together,  have 
never  been  equalled  in  the  whole  world.  But  if  a  Conserva 
tive  feeling  had  been  steadily  growing  up  in  England  before 
the  "  bursting  of  the  American  bubble  ",  it  is  equally  true  that 
that  great  collapse  of  Democracy  has  done  much  to  give 
to  that  feeling  its  present  universality.  Abstract  reasoning 
cannot  affect  mankind  with  the  same  force  as  actual  experi 
ment  and  practical  demonstration.  Every  sensible  man  in 
this  country  now  acknowledges — what  nearly  all  sensible 


22  INTRODUCTORY 

men  for  some  years  past  felt,  but  lacked  the  courage  to  say — 
that  we  have  already  gone  as  far  towards  Democracy  as  it  is 
safe  to  go,  and  that  another  step  like  that  proposed  by  Lord 
Russell  would  have  carried  us  irretrievably  over  the  precipice. 
This  is  the  great  moral  benefit  which  we  have  derived  from 
the  events  in  America. 

.  .  .  This  is  a  free  country,  and  a  few  eloquent  or  blustering 
Radicals  serve  to  "  let  off  the  steam  "  of  their  class,  and  serve 
to  remind  the  sober-minded  portion  of  the  community  what 
a  very  mad  and  drunken  thing  Radicalism  is.  Mr.  Bright 
and  his  followers  may  hold  a  place  in  political  England  as 
usefully  as  the  drunken  Helots  did  in  the  social  usages  of 
Sparta.  But  though  we  have  no  great  zeal  for  the  con 
version  of  the  Abbot  of  Unreason  and  his  motley  followers, 
we  think  the  country  will  agree  with  us  that  they  ought 
not  to  be  taken  by  the  hand  by  those  in  high  places,  and 
allowed  to  play  their  pranks  in  the  government  of  the 
country.'  (Blacku'ood's  Edinburgh  Magazine,  Vol.  XCIII, 
pp.  247-49). 

As  indicative  of  the  feeling  of  instinctive  appre 
hension,  not  to  say  vague  dread,  with  which  the  rise 
of  the  new  Democracy  was  regarded  in  the  middle 
Victorian  period,  the  following  from  the  correspon 
dence  of  the  Prince  Consort  is  significant.  Referring 
to  a  talk  with  Lord  Derby,  then  Premier,  in  March 
1852,  the  Prince  noted  a  remark  of  Derby's  to  the 
effect  that  the  'leading  Whigs  were  very  much  dis 
satisfied  with  the  company  they  found  themselves 
thrown  into,  and  alarmed  at  the  progress  of  Demo 
cracy'.  And  nine  months  later  the  Prince  again 
noted  with  evident  satisfaction  a  further  assurance 
from  the  same  source  that  the  Tory  leader,  then  about 
to  resign,  '  was  ready  to  support  as  far  as  he  could, 
any  administration  which  was  sincerely  anxious  to 


INTRODUCTORY  23 

check  the  growth  of  Democracy.'     (Queen  Victorias 
Letters,  Vol.  II,  pp.  66,  500.) 

Sixty  years  afterwards  this  <  Democracy '  was  de 
fined  by  the  Duke  of  Northumberland  in  debate  in 
the  Lords  as  'simply  that  kind  of  government 
which  invariably  prevails  in  one  form  or  another  in 
the  decay  of  a  State'.  (House  of  Lords,  May  16 
1911.) 


I 
PRINCIPIA 


1) 


PRINCIPIA 

SUCH  of  you  as  chance  to  be  more  careful  newspaper 
readers  may  not  improbably  have  noticed  within  the 
last  few  days  a  series  of  cable  messages  from  America 
relating  to  a  difficulty  now  assuming  a  shape  more  or 
less  ominous  of  trouble  between  the  United  States 
and  Japan.  Actuated  by  a  strong  racial  prejudice, 
and,  as  they  assert,  moral  and  other  considerations, 
the  Legislature  of  the  State  of  California  is  considering, 
and  seems  about  to  enact,  some  very  drastic  measures 
of  legislation  generally  anti-Asiatic  in  character,  but 
in  their  operation  distinctly  aimed  at  immigration  from 
Japan.  This  State  legislation,  it  is  alleged,  is  in  mani 
fest  contravention  of  our  treaty  obligations  with  Japan, 
and  may,  if  passed,  involve  the  national  Government 
in  serious  Eastern  complications.  The  action  referred 
to  is  taken  under  cover  and  by  virtue  of  what  we  in 
America  know  as  State  Sovereignty ;  and  those  who 
have  followed  the  course  of  events  as  day  by  day 
developed  in  the  cable  dispatches  may  have  noticed, 
not  perhaps  without  surprise  and  even  a  sense  of 
bewilderment,  that  our  newly  elected  President,  just 
installed  in  his  high  office,  is  greatly  perturbed  over 
the  outlook.  To  such  a  degree  indeed  is  he  per 
turbed  that  he  has  not  only  addressed  a  formal 
remonstrance  to  the  California  State  authorities  against 


28  PRINCIPIA 

the  passage  of  the  enactments  in  question,  but  he, 
head  of  the  nation,  is  about  to  send  his  newly 
appointed  Secretary  of  State — the  first  member  of  his 
Cabinet — across  the  continent  to  secure  at  least 
a  modification,  should  the  enactment  of  some  legisla 
tion  of  the  character  referred  to  be  insisted  upon. 
Certainly,  this  is  a  most  unusual  proceeding — a  pro 
ceeding  indeed  wholly  unprecedented  in  American 
annals,  and  to  foreign  nations  altogether  incompre 
hensible.  On  the  other  hand,  the  dispatches  tell  us 
that  the  entire  State  of  California  is  in  arms  against 
the  Japanese  settlers,  the  sentiment  being  general  that 
they  should  be  driven  out.  The  President  also  is,  we 
are  assured  by  the  same  authority,  advised  that  the 
anti-American  feeling  in  Japan  is  growing  rapidly, 
and  that  Japan  considers  the  issue  presented  one  of 
national  honour.1 

Here  is  a  new  international  complication,  involving 
not  impossibly  serious  social  issues.  It  arises  out  of 
the  exercise  of  what  we  in  America  know  as  the  power 

1  The  situation  at  the  close  of  the  month  of  April,  1913,  was 
as  above  set  forth.  Subsequently,  the  mission  of  Mr.  Bryan,  the 
Secretary  of  State,  proved  futile.  The  Californian  Legislature 
insisted  upon  the  passage  of  the  enactments  proposed,  without 
modification ;  and  the  measure  received  the  signature  of  the 
Governor  of  the  State,  regardless  of  the  remonstrances  of  the 
President  expressed  through  the  Secretary  of  State.  Public 
meetings  denunciatory  of  this  legislation,  and  indicating  a  strong 
popular  feeling,  were  subsequently  held  at  Tokio  and  else 
where  in  Japan.  A  diplomatic  correspondence  ensued,  with 
a  request  on  the  part  of  Japan  that  the  point  at  issue  be  referred 
to  arbitration.  At  this  time  (July,  1913)  no  definite  agreement 
has  been  reached. 


PRINCIPIA  29 

of  State  Sovereignty.  With  the  issue  thus  presented 
as  an  international  complication,  I  here  and  now  have 
nothing  to  do ;  there  is,  however,  from  the  historic 
point  of  view,  much  to  be  said  on  State  Sovereignty 
as  it  exists  as  part  of  the  United  States  governmental 
system.  This  is  germane  to  my  course,  and  the  present 
is  a  very  opportune  time  to  enlarge  upon  it ;  for  one 
of  the  leading  London  journals  was  the  other  day  not 
far  from  the  truth  when  it  editorially  said :  '  Mr. 
Woodrow  Wilson. has  not  been  long  in  discovering 
that  doctrines  that  seem  excellent  in  theory  are  often 
inconvenient  in  practice.  One  of  the  first  requisites 
of  the  democratic  faith  is  the  sovereignty  of  the 
separate  States  of  the  Union.  It  has  always  been  the 
tradition  of  the  party  to  which  President  Wilson  be 
longs  to  resist  any  extension  of  the  authority  of  the 
Federal  Government.'  The  topic  here  alluded  to,  if 
properly  handled,  while  not  without  its  dramatic 
features,  has  a  decided  historical  interest.  I  now 
address  myself  to  it ;  it  involves  the  growth  of  a 
people,  the  crystallization  of  a  nationality. 

From  its  inception  in  the  earliest  stages  of  your 
own  Great  Rebellion,  to  its  consummation  in  the  out 
come  of  our  Civil  War,  this  growth  in  the  case  of  the 
United  States  covered  a  period  of  approximately  two 
hundred  years.  It  is  not  my  purpose,  neither  indeed, 
in  the  time  at  my  disposal,  would  it  be  possible,  to 
enter  in  any  detail  into  the  history  either  of  the  entire 
period  or  of  the  later  struggle,  to  which  I  have  just 
referred,  which  closed  it ;  and,  moreover,  that  later 
and  final  struggle  has  recently  been  sufficiently  here 


30  PRINCIPIA 

traversed ]  by  another  more  competent  than  I.  My 
plan,  therefore,  is  to  deal  in  this  course  only  with 
certain  phases  of  the  general  history  and  the  more 
recent  conflict,  or  some  aspects  of  both  which  hitherto 
have  either  wholly  escaped  the  notice  of  the  historian 
or  have  in  my  opinion  been  insufficiently  dealt  with. 

Historical  parallels  and  generalizations  are  things 
dangerous  to  indulge  in  ;  often  deceptive,  they  are 
always  open  to  criticism.  With  us  of  the  English- 
speaking  race,  however,  that  date,  the  year  of  grace 
1642  and  the  seventeenth  of  the  reign  of  Charles  I, 
challenges  both  parallelism  and  generalization  ;  it  was, 
in  short,  epochal.  For,  in  the  closing  half  of  1642  and  in 
the  early  months  of  the  year  next  ensuing,  began  on 
both  sides  of  the  Atlantic  concurrent  and  interacting 
processes,  slow  of  movement  at  times  and  at  times 
rapid,  which  in  America  worked  to  a  final  result  in 
April,  1865,  and  which  in  Great  Britain  are  to-day 
producing  changes  as  pronounced  as  they  are  un 
mistakable — in  fact,  revolutionary.  Witness  your  so- 
called  Parliament  Act  of  1911.  In  America  a  Nation 
ality  resulted ;  in  Great  Britain,  Democracy. 

Let  me  particularize.  It  was  in  June,  1642,  that 
supremacy  in  the  State  was  first  claimed  by  Parlia 
ment — the  Long  Parliament.  Practically,  sovereignty 
was  then  assumed,  it  might  be  said  arrogated  to  itself, 
by  the  House  of  Commons ;  for  the  proclamation  of 
King  Charles,  forbidding  the  muster  of  the  militia, 

1  Lectures  on  the  American  Civil  War,  delivered  before  the 
University  of  Oxford  in  the  Easter  and  Trinity  Terms,  1912. 
By  James  Ford  Rhodes.  The  Macmillan  Company,  1918. 


PRINCIPIA  31 

was  then  answered  by  a  formal  parliamentary  declara 
tion,  carrying  the  stamp  of  royal  authority,  although 
his  Majesty  in  his  proper  person  might,  as  he  did, 
disavow  and  oppose  the  same.  A  month  later  the 
first  blood  of  Civil  War — the  War  of  the  Common 
wealth — was  shed  at  Manchester ;  and  on  the  22nd  of 
the  following  month  the  staff  from  which  the  royal 
standard  flew  was  fixed  in  the  ground  here  in  Oxford, 
under  circumstances  so  picturesquely  described  in 
Clarendon's  stately  narrative.  In  the  language  of  the 
last  and  most  thorough  historian  of  the  period,  '  Eng 
land  was  about  to  learn  through  suffering  that  wisdom 
which  is  to  be  found  in  neither  of  the  opposing  ranks.' 
From  that  day  to  this  the  lesson  referred  to  has  been 
wellnigh  continuous.  So  far,  England. 

Meanwhile,  on  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic — our 
side — a  more  peaceful  but  not  less  momentous  event 
was  occurring.  All  through  the  latter  months  of 
1642 — the  period  following  Edgehill  in  England — a 
confederation  of  the  English  settlements  east  of  the 
Hudson  river  was  under  constant  consideration. 
Finally,  011  May  19th,  1643,  according  to  the  calendar 
then  in  use — equivalent  now  to  the  29th  of  the 
month — articles  of  union  were  signed  by  commis 
sioners  representing  the  colonies  of  the  Massachu 
setts  Bay,  of  Connecticut  and  of  New  Haven,  in 
which  the  Plymouth  Plantation  joined  in  the  follow 
ing  August.  Entered  upon  under  the  hegemony  of 
the  Massachusetts  Bay,  'it  was  the  first  example  of 
coalition  in  colonial  history,  and  constituted  the  germ 
that  in  the  fruition  of  the  following  century  became 


32  PRINCIPIA 

the  union  of  the  States.'  In  other  words,  the  step 
taken  May  29th,  1643,  initiated  a  process  finally 
consummated  on  the  9th  of  April,  1865 — Appomattox- 
day,  as  we  in  America  call  it — that  day  on  which 
General  Lee  surrendered  the  Confederate  Army  of 
Northern  Virginia  to  the  Army  of  the  Union  under 
the  command  of  General  Grant. 

Our  American  orators,  historical  writers,  and 
historians  have  since  in  all  possible  detail  dealt  with 
periods  and  phases  of  this  process,  such  as  what  is 
known  as  our  Revolutionary  War — more  properly, 
the  War  of  Independence — our  Civil  War,  as  they 
have  termed  the  War  of  Secession,  or  the  framing  of 
our  famous  Federal  Constitution ;  but  these,  one  and 
all,  were  merely  incidents,  or  at  most  episodes  in  the 
process  of  nation-building,  which,  begun  in  May,  1643, 
closed  in  April,  1865.  Subsequently  to  the  first 
Articles  of  Confederation,  those  of  1643,  and  prior  to 
the  Federal  Constitution  of  1787,  a  succession  of 
attempts  at  closer  or  more  comprehensive  confedera 
tion  were  made — some  theoretical  and  abortive,  others 
practical  and  operative — each  marking  an  advance  on 
what  went  before,  a  striving  towards  the  goal,  an 
aspiration  to  a  fuller  nationality ;  these,  however, 
were  but  phases  of  the  process  irresistibly,  though  for 
long  periods  imperceptibly,  proceeding.  At  first,  and 
for  long,  the  movement  was  slow.  At  the  close,  it  went 
on  with  startling  swiftness  to  the  Appomattox  climax. 

Condensed,  the  story  is  one  of  absorbing  interest ; 
and  intelligently  read  it  conveys  also  more  than 
one  political  lesson  of  general  as  well  as  practical 


PRINCIPIA  33 

import — lessons,  when  properly  studied,  not  with 
out  significance,  possibly,  to  the  England  of  to- day. 
I  will  endeavour  briefly  to  summarize  the  process, 
avoiding  details  and  yet  trying  to  make  clear  what 
have  ever  seemed  stumblingblocks  or  foolishness  to 
those  not  to  the  manner  born. 

Every  tolerably  read  Englishman  or  American  is 
acquainted  with  Burke's  famous  vision  of  Lord 
Bathurst  in  his  speech  on  conciliation  with  America. 
Burke  there,  you  will  remember,  pictures  '  the  angel 
of  this  auspicious  youth '  opening  to  him  a  boyhood 
vision.  The  time  was  supposed  to  be  1714,  the  year 
of  the  death  of  Queen  Anne,  and  the  accession  of 
King  George  I.  Drawing  the  curtain  which  con 
cealed  the  future,  Burke's  angel  first  unfolded  the 
rising  glories  of  England  ;  and  while  the  youthful 
Bathurst  'was  gazing  with  admiration  on  the  then 
commercial  grandeur  of  England ',  the  genius,  it  is  sup 
posed,  points  out  to  him  a  little  speck,  scarce  visible  in 
the  mass  of  the  national  interest,  a  small  seminal  prin 
ciple,  rather  than  a  formed  body,  and  in  so  doing,  says  : 
'Young  man,  there  is  America — which  at  this  day 
serves  for  little  more  than  to  amuse  you  with  stories  of 
savage  men  and  uncouth  manners ;  yet  shall,  before 
you  taste  of  death,  show  itself  equal  to  the  whole  of 
that  commerce  which  now  attracts  the  envy  of  the 
world.  Whatever  England  has  been  growing  to  by  a 
progressive  increase  of  improvement,  brought  in  by 
varieties  of  people,  by  succession  of  civilizing  conquests 
and  civilizing  settlements  in  a  series  of  seventeen 
hundred  years,  you  shall  see  as  much  added  to  her  by 


34  PKINCIPIA 

America  in  the  course  of  a  single  life !  If  this  state 
of  his  country  had  been  foretold  to  him,  would  it  not 
require  all  the  sanguine  credulity  of  youth,  and  all  the 
fervid  glow  of  enthusiasm,  to  make  him  believe  it? 
Fortunate  man,  he  has  lived  to  see  it ! '  Burke  then 
proceeds  in  another  burst  of  rhetoric  to  call  attention 
to  the  fact  that  all  this  has  been  accomplished  by  '  a 
people  who  are  still,  as  it  were,  but  in  the  gristle,  and 
not  yet  hardened  into  the  bone  of  manhood.  When  I 
contemplate  these  things/  he  adds,  '  when  I  know  that 
the  colonies  in  general  owe  little  or  nothing  to  any  care 
of  ours,  and  that  they  are  not  squeezed  into  this  happy 
form  by  the  constraints  of  watchful  and  suspicious 
government,  but  that  through  a  wise  and  salutary 
neglect,  a  generous  nature  has  been  suffered  to  take 
her  own  way  to  perfection  ;  when  I  reflect  upon  these 
effects,  when  I  see  how  profitable  they  have  been  to 
us,  I  feel  all  the  pride  of  power  sink,  and  all  presump 
tion  in  the  wisdom  of  human  contrivances  melt  and 
die  away  within  me.  My  rigour  relents.  I  pardon 
something  to  the  spirit  of  liberty.' 

If  the  long  and  memorable  record  of  English  parlia 
mentary  utterance,  unique  in  history  and  educational 
importance,  contains  a  finer  rhetorical  outburst  than 
the  foregoing,  I  can  only  say  I  am  not  acquainted 
with  it.  This  alone  would  justify  quotation  ;  the  pas 
sage  is,  however,  also  very  opportune  in  the  present 
connexion.  With  that  inimitable  happiness  of  speech 
peculiar  to  himself,  Burke  referred  to  the  l  small 
seminal  principles '  rather  than  '  formed  bodies '  dotted 
in  1704  along  the  fifteen  hundred  miles  of  North 


PRINCIPIA  3g 

American  Atlantic  seaboard,  which  seventy  years 
later,  at  the  time  Burke  spoke,  had  by  a  process  of 
natural  growth  become  i  a  people  still,  as  it  were,  but 
in  the  gristle,  and  not  yet  hardened  into  the  bone  of 
manhood'.  But  the  tropes  and  forms  of  speech  in 
which  he  then  clad  his  thought  are  to  the  American 
investigator  of  the  present  time  curiously  significant— 
they  seem  inspired.  l  My  pride  of  power  sinks '  .  .  . 
'  all  presumption  in  the  wisdom  of  human  contrivance 
melts '  ...  *  I  pardon  something  to  the  spirit  of 
liberty/  '  Power  ! ',  i  Human  contrivances  ! ',  *  Spirit 
of  liberty  ! '  In  these  phrases  was  hidden  the  mystery 
of  America's  situation, — the  problem  of  America's 
future,  then  matter  of  infinite  question.  Indeed,  the 
chances  of  fate  inclined  distinctly  towards  disaster; 
for  the  spirit  of  liberty  prevailed  at  that  juncture  in 
excess  ;  '  power '  was  deficient ;  the  '  human  con 
trivances '  essential  to  a  successful  solution  of  the 
problem  remained  to  be  devised.  The  situation,  at 
best  critical,  was  on  any  doctrine  of  chance  fairly 
appalling.  The  question  of  man's  capacity  for  self- 
government  through  representation  based  on  general 
suffrage,  was  at  issue.  Would  the  provinces,  freed 
from  foreign  guidance  and  motherly  control,  prove 
equal  to  the  occasion? 

As  what  ensued — that  process  of  hardening  from  the 
'  gristle '  of  colonialism  to  the  '  bone '  of  nationality — is 
familiar  history,  it  will  not  here  bear  repetition ;  so 
I  shall  now  condense  volumes  into  a  single  page. 
The  issue  was  two-fold :  would  the  thirteen  indepen 
dent  colonial  offshoots  develop  among  them  leaders 


36  PEINCIPIA 

of  the  matured  public  spirit  and  ( 
lity  adequate  for  the  work  in  hai 
that  work  being  a  practical  schem 
government?  and,  this  leadership 
ability  assumed,  would  the  popular  ] 
leadership  prove  sufficiently  advan 
education  to  accept  the  results  tin 
acquiesce  therein?  It  was  the  old 
and  the  Achaian  League  over 
thousand  years  of  human  evolution  intervening. 
What,  if  anything,  had  mankind  learned  in  the 
interim?  The  world,  and  with  cause,  was  very  in 
credulous  as  to  the  answer  this  query  was  about  to 
receive.  Would  an  ordered  nationality,  or  would 
a  condition  of  chronic  anarchy,  emerge?  The  odds 
stood  heavy  in  favour  of  the  latter. 

So  far  as  leadership  and  constructive  ability  were  con 
cerned,  the  struggle  for  American  independence  had 
in  its  outcome  been  conclusive.  They  were  there. 
Chatham,  with  the  practised  eye  of  a  statesman — an 
eye  both  natural  and  trained — early  recognized  this 
fact,  and  bore  witness  of  record  to  it.  Such  individu 
alities  as  Washington  and  Franklin  were  conclusive  as 
to  leadership ;  while,  as  respects  constructive  ability, 
Massachusetts  and  Virginia  took  the  lead.  The  latter 
evolved  the  Declaration  of  Independence ;  the  former 
its  written  constitution  of  1782,  in  the  constructive 
aspect  infinitely  the  more  important  production  of 
the  two.  But,  though  the  leadership  was  there,  the 
question  whether  its  teachings  would  not  in  practical 
working  prove  caviare  to  the  general  remained  to  be 


PEINCIPIA  37 

seen.  Were  the  rank  and  file  of  those  then  inhabiting 
the  thirteen  provinces  to  be  depended  on  to  follow  the 
leaders,  and  accept  their  conclusions?  if  not,  those 
leaders  were  after  all  but  voices  crying  in  the  wilder 
ness.  The  world  in  such  case  would  then  but  witness 
a  repetition  of  Achaian  experiences. 

The  ordeal  was  successfully  met ;  but  that  final  pro 
cess  of  crystallization  into  a  constitutional  and  con 
firmed  nationality  occupied  close  upon  a  century. 
Begun  in  1776,  it  stood  completed  in  1865. 

It  was,  and  still  is,  fairly  open  to  question  whether  the 
method  of  solving  the  problem  adopted  by  the  fathers  in 
1787  could  not  most  fitly  as  well  as  accurately  be 
described  as  a  clever  political  trick,  rather  than  an 
inspiration.  It  certainly  would  have  been  a  trick,  so  far 
as  the  mass  of  those  interested  in  the  outcome  were 
concerned,  had  the  leaders  in  the  constructive  work 
then  done  themselves  suspected  what  shape  that  out 
come  was  to  take.  They  most  assuredly  did  not. 
Building  better  than  they  knew,  they  deceived  them 
selves.  They  actually  had  faith  in  the  metaphysical 
abstractions  to  which  they  had  recourse !  Time,  out 
side  pressure,  and  the  rapid  development  of  the  re 
sources  of  nature,  then  wholly  undreamed  of,  did  the 
rest.  The  study  of  what,  step  by  step,  occurred  in  the 
process  is  most  interesting  and,  as  respects  the  future, 
suggestive. 

The  obstacle  in  the  way  of  crystallization  lay  in  an 
excess  of  that  '  spirit  of  liberty '  to  which  Burke  pro 
nounced  himself  so  tolerant ;  and  in  an  absence  of 
that  *  power '  to  coerce  in  presence  of  which  his  pride 


38  PKINCIPIA 

insensibly  sank.  The  spirit  of  liberty  in  America,  as 
before  in  Greece,  asserted  itself  in  a  pronounced  cling 
ing  to  independence — local  independence.  An  inde 
pendence  which  bore  a  resemblance  unpleasantly 
suggestive  of  licence.  Each  one  of  the  thirteen 
original  provinces  asserted  its  sovereignty — loudly 
proclaimed  itself  a  nation.  The  provincialism  was 
intense  ;  the  mutual  jealousies,  dislikes,  and  aversions 
only  short  of  racial,  were  quite  as  pronounced  as  those 
which  formerly  led  to  the  downfall  of  the  Achaian 
League,  or  as  more  recently  existed  in  the  four 
British  nationalities ;  for  Saxon  never  disliked  or 
despised  Gael  or  Celt  more  than  did  Carolinians  the 
Yankee.  As  well  attempt  to  crystallize  oil  and  water  ! 
Under  such  conditions  the  problem  which  taxed  the 
constructive  ingenuity  of  the  leaders,  after  the  conflict 
with  Great  Britain  was  over  and  outside  pressure 
withdrawn,  was  to  devise  a  deception — a  nationality 
which  should  not  be  a  sovereignty ;  and  they  actually 
accomplished  that  feat,  persuading  others  by  first 
thoroughly  deceiving  themselves. 

To  bring  the  result  about  they  had  recourse  to  what 
I  have  already  referred  to  as  a  metaphysical  ab 
straction — they  invented,  what  in  perfect  good  faith 
they  proclaimed  as  divided  sovereignty ;  but  which 
in  reality  was  a  most  ingenious  and  deceptive 
temporary  modus  Vivendi.  The  proposition,  in  the 
nature  of  a  compromise,  recommended  itself  to  the 
general  popular  mind ;  that  compromises  of  this  sort 
are  apt  so  to  recommend  themselves  is  matter  of 
common  observation.  The  situation  as  then  (1789) 


PEINCIPIA  39 

existing  in  the  general  public  understanding,  North 
and  South,  has  been  not  unfairly  stated  in  the 
recent  publication  of  a  Confederate,  still,  half  a  cen 
tury  after  Appomattox,  quite  i  unreconstructed ',  as  we 
phrase  it ;  that  is,  a  belated  survivor  of  the  '  Lost 
Cause',  one  now  in  America  occupying  politically 
much  the  position  occupied  here  by  a  confirmed 
Jacobite  two  centuries  ago,  or  in  France  at  present  by 
a  dyed-in-the-wool  Bourbonist.  Eeferring  to  our  War 
of  Independence,  the  writer  from  whom  I  quote  says : 
1  At  no  time  during  the  rebellion  [that  is,  the  War  of 
Independence]  did  the  American  nations  act  as 
a  single  nation.  A  treaty  was  entered  into  by  them 
on  November  15,  1777,  the  treaty  being  known  as 
Articles  of  Confederation.  .  .  .  This  was  the  first 
governmental  union  made  by  the  American  nations 
for  purposes  other  than  war,  and  the  object  of  this 
union  was  to  wage  war  successfully.  The  nations 
parties  to  the  compact  each  continued  to  exercise  full 
powers  of  sovereignty ;  and,  when  they  disapproved 
any  provision  of  the  Confederation,  such  provision  was 
disregarded  by  them.' 

Fired  with  that  local  spirit  of  liberty  to  which 
Burke  was  so  forgiving,  this  somewhat  anarchistic 
state  of  affairs  seems  yet  to  commend  itself  as  ideal 
to  the  judgement  of  this  writer.  In  other  words,  the 
thirteen  *  nations ',  which  would  now  have  increased 
in  number  to  forty-eight,  then  dwelt  together  in  amity, 
or  otherwise,  as  the  case  might  be,  under  a  compact ; 
obeying  the  decrees  of  a  central  council  when  it  was 
agreeable  for  them  so  to  do,  and  paying  no  attention 


40  PEINCIPIA 

to  them  if  not  agreeable.  Yet  this  writer,  represent 
ing  very  fairly  the  liberty  extremists,  goes  on  to  say 
that  when  the  Federal  Constitution  was  framed, 
'  Few  of  the  American  nations,  if  any,  were  willing 
to  become  parties  to  the  written  agreement  until  they 
had  been  assured  that  it  should  not  be  construed  to 
affect  their  sovereignty  in  the  least.  They  were  will 
ing  to  delegate  specified  powers  to  a  holding  company 
—such  as  the  federal  agents  would  make — for  each 
nation  would  have  the  right  to  take  back  the  powers 
so  delegated.' 

As  I  have  said,  this  is  the  extreme  States-right 
view  of  results  brought  about  through  the  famous 
Federal  Constitution  of  1789.  Historically,  however, 
it  can  equally  well  be  maintained  that  the  Constitution 
was  framed  on  the  principle  of  a  nationality — that  is, 
Congress  and  the  National  Executive,  as  well  as  the 
State  Legislature  and  the  State  Executive,  acted 
directly  on  the  citizen.  Each  having  jurisdiction,  the 
enactments  and  authority  of  each,  within  certain 
limits,  applied  to  the  individual,  and  he  was  thus 
subjected  to  a  double  or  divided,  and  hence  possibly 
conflicting,  allegiance.  The  question,  in  fact,  was 
whether  the  national  powers  thus  delegated  were  ir 
revocable,  or  could  at  any  time  be  recalled  by  the 
constituent  State. 

Such  a  system,  which  historically  and  beyond  ques 
tion  was  that  which  did  exist  in  the  early  days  of  the 
Eepublic,  constituted,  though  we  were  not  conscious  of 
the  fact,  a  phase  in  a  process  of  evolution — a  transitory 
phase  which  might  result  in  almost  anything — segrega- 


PBINCIPIA  41 

tion,  consolidated  nationality,  not  impossibly  chronic 
anarchy.  Meanwhile  as  a  transitory  phase— a  condi 
tion  of,  so  to  speak,  unstable  equilibrium — it  was 
marked  by  continual  dispute  and  ill-feeling.  This 
was  true  at  nearly  all  times,  and  in  separate  sections 
of  the  country  at  different  times.  For  example,  within 
ten  years  of  the  adoption  of  the  Federal  Constitution, 
the  National  Government,  confronted  by  a  supposed 
political  emergency,  undertook  to  assert  its  sovereignty 
through  the  passage  of  statutes  known  as  the  Alien 
and  Sedition  Laws.  Though  the  wisdom  of  the  legis 
lation  was  questionable,  that  its  enactment  was  within 
the  province  of  any  nationality  possessing  sovereignty 
would  at  once  to-day  be  admitted.  It  was,  however, 
immediately  and  peremptorily  challenged  by  the  party 
of  States-rights,  Thomas  Jefferson  himself  drawing 
up  votes  of  nullification  passed  by  the  Legislatures  of 
three  States.  Those  enactments  are  now  known  in 
history  as  the  i  Kentucky  Kesolutions  of  1798'.  Thus 
early  was  foreshadowed  the  secession  ordinances 
of  sixty  years  later.  Again,  early  in  the  following 
century  the  adherents  of  Jefferson,  now  President, 
being  in  political  control,  the  four  States  then  con 
stituting  the  New  England  portion  of  the  United  States, 
disliking  an  embargo  at  that  time  imposed  by  the 
National  Government  in  restraint  of  foreign  commerce, 
gravely  considered  a  withdrawal  from  the  Union, 
though  no  overt  act  to  that  end  was  actually  committed. 
As  then  presented,  the  issue  was  based  exclusively  on 
commercial  considerations.  A  few  years  later,  in  1820, 
the  slavery  question  came  to  the  front,  there  to  remain 

1593  F 


42  PEINCIPIA 

until  actual  battle  was  joined ;  and,  in  the  angry 
discussion  which  arose  in  connexion  with  new  States 
about  to  be  organized,  threats  of  disunion  through 
secession  were  freely  made.  The  tariff  was  next  the 
source  of  sectional  strife,  a  system  of  agriculture 
based  on  slavery  being  the  underlying  cause  of 
trouble.  In  this  case  one  of  the  States — South 
Carolina— undertook  to  'nullify ',  as  it  was  termed,  an 
enactment  of  Congress,  declaring  it  inoperative  with 
in  South  Carolina's  boundaries.  The  National  Govern 
ment  was  set  at  open  defiance.  This  time  the  issue 
was  compromised  and  temporarily  adjourned,  only  pre 
sently  to  assert  itself  anew,  slavery  being  again  the 
underlying  cause,  primarily  in  connexion  with  the 
annexation  to  the  United  States  of  Texas,  an  inde 
pendent  republic.  And  now,  once  more,  the  State 
of  Massachusetts,  again  committing  no  overt  act, 
pronounced  the  violation  of  the  Constitution  so  gross 
that  a  secession  from  the  Union,  though  not  actually 
attempted,  might  be  considered  justifiable.  From 
this  time  on,  and  for  fifteen  years,  slavery  was 
continually  at  issue,  with  the  menace  of  disunion 
for  ever  impending.  A  withdrawal  was  widely  and 
loudly  advocated  at  the  South  by  the  believers  in 
an  industrial  system  based  on  African  slave  labour ; 
while  in  the  North  a  peaceable  dissolution  was  urged 
on  the  ground  that,  because  of  its  recognition  of 
slavery,  the  Federal  Constitution  was  a  compact  with 
hell. 

If  ever  a  topic  of  contention  was  thoroughly  thrashed 
out — so  thrashed  out,  in  fact,  as  to  offer  no  possible 


PEINCIPIA  43 

gleaning  of  novelty — it  might  be  inferred  that  among 
us  in  America  this  Divided  Sovereignty  conception 
had  been  subjected  to  that  process.  Yet  years  ago 
I  ventured  the  opinion  that  such  was  not  altogether 
the  case ;  and  to  that  opinion  I  still  adhere.  To  my 
mind,  the  difficulty  with  the  discussion  has  always 
been  that  throughout,  extending  as  it  has  over  the 
lives  of  three  generations,  it  has  in  essence  been  too 
abstract,  legal  and  technical — in  a  word,  academic — 
and  not  sufficiently  historical,  sociological  and  psycho 
logical  ;  in  another  word,  human.  It  has  been  made  to 
turn  on  the  wording  of  certain  written  instruments. 
Yet  those  instruments  were  in  themselves  confessedly 
not  explicit ;  and,  when  discussing  them,  far  too  little 
regard  was  paid  to  traditions,  local  ties,  and  inherited 
prejudices.  As  matter  of  fact,  however,  actual  men 
as  they  live,  move,  and  have  their  being,  care  little  for 
acts  of  parliaments  or  theories,  but  they  are  the 
creatures  of  heredity :  respecting  local  attachments, 
they  yield  obedience  to  custom.  Especially  is  this 
true  of  those  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  breed ;  and  it  hence 
ensued  that  when  the  American  Federal  Constitution 
was  framed,  and  a  year  later  adopted — that  is,  in 
1787-89 — the  dangerous  question  of  ultimate  sove 
reignty  was  instinctively  avoided — treated  as  if  its 
settlement  was  in  no  way  imperative.  The  Federal 
Constitution,  consequently,  was  both  theoretically  and 
avowedly  based  on  a  metaphysical  abstraction — the 
idea  of  a  divided  sovereignty — in  utter  disregard  of 
the  fact  that,  when  a  final  issue  is  presented — when, 
so  to  speak,  the  push-of-pike  comes — sovereignty  does 


44:  PRINCIPIA 

not  admit  of  division.  It  then  rests  in  might.  It 
always  has  so  rested ;  and,  in  the  nature  of  things, 
there  rest  it  always  must. 

Yet  even  this  last  proposition,  basic  as  it  is,  I  have 
frequently  heard  denied.  It  is  in  argument  replied 
that,  as  matter  of  fact,  sovereignty  is  divided,  and 
almost  habitually  divided — divided  in  family  life, 
divided  in  the  apportionment  of  the  functions  of 
government.  Those  thus  arguing,  however,  do  so 
confusedly.  They  confound  sovereignty  with  an 
agreed,  but  artificial,  modus  vivendi.  The  Constitution 
of  the  United  States,  was,  in  fact,  just  that — a  modus 
vivendi ;  ingenious,  unquestionably,  but  still  a  modus 
vivendi.  Under  the  circumstances,  it  was  a  most 
happy  expedient  for  overcoming  an  obstacle  in  the 
way  of  nationality,  otherwise  insurmountable.  To 
accomplish  the  end  they  had  in  view,  the  framers, 
deceiving  themselves,  had  recourse  to  a  highly  decep 
tive  device,  under  which  it  was  left  to  time  and  the 
individual  to  decide,  when  the  final  issue  should  arise, 
if  it  ever  did  arise — and  they  all  devoutly  hoped  it 
never  would  arise — where  sovereignty,  and  conse 
quently  allegiance,  lay.  From  the  historical  point  of 
view  there  is  indeed  nothing  in  connexion  with  the 
history  of  American  development  more  interesting 
than  the  growth  and  gradual  evolution  of  this  spirit  of 
federal  nationality.  Slowly  and  imperceptibly  sup 
planting  State  pride,  it  finally  carried  with  it,  as  it 
inevitably  must,  sovereignty  and  allegiance.  The 
process  and  outcome  were  long  treated  in  a  purely 
legal  and  technical  way — it  was  a  question  of  the 


PEINCIPIA  45 

verbal  construction  of  an  instrument.  I,  in  all  confi 
dence,  maintain  that  it  was  in  reality  at  once  a  prac 
tical  issue  and  an  historical  sequence.  Treated  as 
a  practical  issue,  and  not  as  a  merely  technical  point 
in  controversy,  it  was  in  the  course  of  American 
history  decided,  and,  moreover,  correctly  decided,  both 
ways  at  different  times  in  different  sections,  and,  at 
different  times,  in  opposite  ways  in  the  same  section. 

This  sounds  paradoxical  —  to  the  Confederate  a 
stumblingblock,  to  the  European  foolishness.  And  yet 
the  case  is  necessarily  as  stated.  For,  as  development 
progressed  on  various  lines  in  different  times  and 
localities,  the  sense  of  allegiance  shifted.  Two  whole 
generations  passed  away  between  the  adoption  of  the 
Federal  Constitution  in  1789  and  the  War  of  Secession 
in  1861.  When  that  war  broke  out,  the  last  of  the 
framers  of  the  Constitution  had  been  a  score  of  years 
in  his  grave.  Evidence,  however,  is  conclusive  that, 
until  the  decennium  between  1830  and  1840,  the 
belief  was  nearly  universal  that  in  case  of  a  final, 
unavoidable  issue,  sovereignty  resided  in  the  State, 
and  to  the  State  its  citizens'  allegiance  was  due. 

The  technical  argument — the  logic  of  the  proposi 
tion  —  seems  plain ;  in  fact,  unanswerable.  The 
original  sovereignty  was  indisputably  in  the  State  ;  in 
order  to  establish  a  nationality  certain  attributes  of 
sovereignty  were  ceded  by  the  several  States  to  a  com 
mon  central  organization — what  Jefferson  described  as 
a  Department  of  Foreign  Affairs ;  all  attributes  not 
thus  specifically  conceded  were  reserved  to  the  States  ; 
and  no  attributes  of  moment  were  to  be  included  by 


46  PEINCIPIA 

construction.  Yet  no  attribute  is  so  important  as 
allegiance,  citizenship.  So  far  all  is  elementary,  in 
disputable.  And  now  we  come  to  the  crux  of  the 
proposition.  Not  only  was  all  allegiance — the  right 
to  define  and  establish  citizenship — not  among  the 
attributes  specifically  conceded  by  the  several  States 
to  the  central  nationality,  but,  on  the  contrary,  it  was 
explicitly  reserved.  The  instrument  definitely  de 
clared  that  'the  citizens  of  each  State'  should  be 
entitled  to  '  all  Privileges  and  Immunities  of  Citizens 
in  the  several  States '.  This,  and,  as  respects  citizen 
ship,  nothing  more.  Ultimate  allegiance  was,  there 
fore,  due  to  the  State  which  defined  and  conferred 
citizenship,  not  to  the  central  organization  which 
accepted  as  citizens  whomsoever  a  State  pronounced 
to  be  such. 

Thus  far  the  situation  is  historical ;  nor  does  there 
seem  any  escape  from  the  logical  deduction  to  be  drawn 
from  it.  Citizenship,  originating  with  the  several 
States,  of  course  involved  allegiance  to  the  State. 
But,  speaking  historically,  and  in  a  philosophical 
rather  than  a  legal  spirit,  it  is  little  more  than  a  com 
monplace  to  assert  that  one  great  safeguard  of  the 
Anglo-Saxon  race — what  might  almost  be  termed  its 
political  palladium — has  ever  been  that  hard,  if  at 
times  illogical,  common-sense,  which,  recognizing 
established  custom  as  a  binding  rule  of  action,  found 
its  embodiment  in  what  we  are  wont  with  pride  to 
term  the  Common  Law.  Now,  just  as  there  can, 
I  think,  be  no  question  as  to  the  source  of  our 
American  citizenship,  and,  consequently,  as  to 


PEINCIPIA  47 

ultimate  sovereignty  when  in  1789  the  Constitution 
was  originally  adopted,  there  can  be  equally  little 
question  that  during  the  lives  of  the  two  succeeding 
generations  a  custom,  so  to  speak,  of  nationality  grew 
up  which  became  the  accepted  Common  Law  of  the 
land,  and  practically  binding  as  such.1  This  was  true 
in  the  South  as  well  as  the  North,  though  the 
custom  was  more  hardened  into  accepted  law  in  the 
latter  than  in  the  former ;  but  the  growth  and  accept 
ance  as  law  of  the  custom  of  nationality  even  in  the 
South  were  incontrovertibly  shown  in  the  very  act  of 
secession — the  seceding  States  at  once  crystallizing 
into  a  Confederacy.  Nationality  in  some  form  was 
assumed  as  a  thing  of  course  ;  and  Nationality  must 
involve  Allegiance. 

But  the  metaphysical  abstraction  of  a  divided  sove 
reignty,  none  the  less,  bridged  a  dangerous  chasm.  As 
a  modus  vivendi  it  did  its  work  ;  and  did  it  well,  because, 
finally,  it  worked  into  Might.  Illogical,  it  was  inevit 
ably  fraught  with  possible  disputes  and  consequent 
dangers  ;  but  it  naturally  came  to  pass  that  in  many  of 
the  States  a  generation  grew  up,  dating  from  the 
second  of  our  wars  with  Great  Britain — that  known 
as  the  War  of  1812 — a  generation  which,  gravitating 
steadily,  and  more  and  more  strongly,  to  nationality, 
took  an  altogether  different  view  of  allegiance.  Those 
of  this  generation  were,  moreover,  wholly  within  their 
right.  The  sovereignty  was  confessedly  divided  ;  and 
it  was  for  those  of  the  new  generation  to  elect.  The 
movements  of  both  science  and  civilization  were 
1  See  note  1,  p.  53. 


48  PRINCIPIA 

behind  the  Nationalists.  The  railroad  obliterated  State 
lines,  while  it  unified  the  nation.  What  did  the 
foreign  immigrants,  now  swarming  across  the  ocean, 
care  for  States  ?  They  knew  only  the  nation  which 
adopted  and  protected  them.  Brought  up  in  Europe, 
the  talk  of  State  Sovereignty  was  to  them  foolishness. 
Its  alphabet  even  was  incomprehensible.  In  a  word, 
it,  too,  was  i  caviare  to  the  general '. 

Then  the  issue,  from  the  beginning  inevitable,  at  last 
arose ;  arose  over  African  slavery.  Slavery  was 
sectional.  Because  of  it,  as  a  domestic  institution  of 
theirs,  the  States  south  of  a  given  line  were  arrayed 
against  the  States  north  of  that  line.  Owing  largely 
to  slavery,  and  the  practical  exclusion  of  foreign  im 
migrants  because  thereof,  the  States  of  the  South 
had-  never  undergone  nationalization  at  all  to  the 
extent  those  of  the  North  had  undergone  it.  The 
growing  influence  and  power  of  the  National  Govern 
ment,  the  sentiment  inspired  by  the  wars  in  which 
the  nation  had  been  engaged,  the  rapidly  improv 
ing  means  of  communication  and  intercourse,  had 
produced  their  effect  in  the  South ;  but  in  degree  far 
less  than  in  the  North,  Thus  the  curious  result  was 
brought  about  that  when,  at  last,  the  long-deferred  issue 
confronted  the  country,  and  the  modus  vivendi  of  two 
generations  was  brought  to  a  close,  those  who  believed 
in  national  sovereignty — the  North — constituted  the 
conservative  majority,  striving  for  the  preservation 
of  what  then  was,  the  existing  nineteenth-century 
Nation  ;  while  those  who  passionately  adhered  to  State 
Sovereignty — the  South — treading  in  the  footsteps  of 


PRINCIPIA  49 

the  fathers,  had  become  eighteenth-century  reactionists. 
Legally,  each  had  right  on  his  side.  The  theory  of 
a  divided  sovereignty  had  worked  itself  out  to  its 
logical  consequence.  '  Under  which  king,  Bezonian  ?  ' 

—and  every  man  had  to  '  speak  or  die '. 

In  the  North  the  situation  was  simple.  State  and 
Nation  stood  together.  The  question  of  allegiance  did 
not  present  itself,  for  the  two  sovereignties  were  merged 

—the  greater  had,  by  a  natural  process,  absorbed  the 
less.  It  was  otherwise  in  the  South ;  and  there  the 
question  became,  not  legal  or  constitutional,  but  senti 
mental  and  practical.  The  life  of  the  nation  had 
endured  so  long,  the  ties  and  ligaments  had  become  so 
numerous  and  interwoven,  that,  all  theories  to  the 
contrary  notwithstanding,  a  peaceable  secession  from 
the  Union — the  actual  exercise  of  State  Sovereignty 
— had  become  impossible.  If  those  composing  the 
several  dissatisfied  communities  would  only  keep  their 
tempers  under  restraint,  and  exercise  an  almost 
unlimited  patience,  a  theoretical  divided  sovereignty, 
maintained  through  the  agency  and  intervention  of  the 
Supreme  Court — in  other  words,  the  perpetuation  of 
the  modus  vivendi — was  altogether  practicable ;  and 
probably  this  was  what  the  framers  had  in  mind  under 
such  a  contingency  as  had  now  arisen.  But  that,  after 
seventy  years  of  union  and  nationalization,  a  peace 
able  and  friendly  taking  to  pieces  was  possible,  is  now, 
as  then  it  was,  scarcely  thinkable.  Certainly,  with 
a  most  vivid  recollection  of  the  state  of  sectional  feeling 
which  then  existed,  I  do  not  believe  there  was  in  1861 
a  man  in  the  United  States— I  am  confident  there  was 


50  PBINCIPIA 

not  a  woman  in  the  South — who  fostered  self-delusion 
to  the  extent  of  believing  that  the  change  was  to  come 
about  without  a  recourse  to  force.  In  other  words, 
practical  secession  was  revolution  theoretically  legal. 
Why  waste  time  and  breath  in  discussion !  The  situ 
ation  became  manifestly  impossible  of  continuance 
when  the  issue  between  heated  men,  with  weapons 
handy,  was  over  a  metaphysical  distinction  involving 
vast  material  and  moral  consequences. 

Historically,  such  were  the  conditions  to  which 
natural  processes  of  development  had  brought  the  com 
mon  country  at  the  mid-decennium  of  the  century. 
People  had  to  elect ;  the  modus  vivendi  was  at  an  end. 
Was  the  State  sovereign?  or  was  the  Nation  sove 
reign  ?  And  it  thus  came  about  that  when,  in  that 
stormy  April  of  1861,  the  cry  at  last  went  forth,  '  To 
your  tents,  O  Israel ! '  it  mattered  not  at  all  whether 
the  issue  over  which  battle  was  joined  loomed  large  or 
seemed  small — whether  it  was  a  straw  or  an  empire, 
an  abstraction  or  the  servitude  of  a  race.  In  point 
of  fact,  Burke's  '  little  specks  scarce  visible/  those 
*  small  seminal  principles  rather  than  formed  bodies ' 
of  1714,  had  assumed  organic  shape ;  the  long  period 
of  gestation  was  over ;  it  was  the  final  birth-throe  of  a 
perfected  nationality.  And  yet  foreign  communities 
— you  here  in  Great  Britain — watched  the  tragedy  in 
bewildered  amazement,  innocently  asking  what  it  was 
all  about  anyhow,  and  did  it  signify  anything  ! 

In  this,  the  first  lecture  of  my  course,  I  have  thus 
attempted  to  deal  with  the  growth  of  Nationality  in 


PKINCIPIA  51 

the  United  States ;  but,  obviously,  the  query  at  once 
suggests  itself,  if  this  is  so,  and,  as  the  outcome  of  the 
Civil  War,  nationality  stands  established,  how  explain 
the  position  of  California,  referred  to  in  my  opening  ? 
How  can  a  State,  no  longer  sovereign,  legislate  in 
contravention  of  the  treaty  obligations  of  the  nation 
ality  of  which  it  is  a  part  ?  A  contradiction  in  terms 
is  implied.  The  answer  is,  however,  simple.  State 
Sovereignty  exists  still  in  theory,  but  it  is  no  longer 
accompanied  by  the  claim  to  any  right  of  its  enforce 
ment  through  secession.  That  issue  was  fought  out, 
and,  in  1865,  decided  for  all  time  to  come.  State 
Sovereignty  in  America  is  now  admittedly  limited  to 
an  arbitrament  by  a  final  judicial  tribunal  —  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  passing,  and 
passing  without  a  right  of  further  appeal,  on  any 
concrete  issue  which  may  be  raised  by  an  Act  of  local 
legislation.  Under  our  written  Constitution,  treaties 
entered  into  by  the  National  Government  with  foreign 
powers  are  the  supreme  law  of  the  land,  overriding  all 
contravening  domestic  enactments.  State  Sovereignty 
is  thus  strictly  limited ;  nationality  has  superseded  it. 
It  is  obvious  and  undeniable  that  serious  complica 
tions,  both  domestic  and  involving  foreign  nations, 
may  in  future  arise  from  this  somewhat  anomalous 
feature  in  our  political  system  —  a  feature  which 
foreigners  find  it  so  difficult  to  understand,  involving 
as  it  does  an  imperium  in  imperio.  Into  that  branch  of 
the  subject  I  do  not  here  enter ;  though  it  too  has  its 
history,  and  of  it  I  shall  have  more  to  say  on  a  future 
occasion.  Now,  I  confine  myself  to  a  narrative  sketch 


52  PEINCIPIA 

of  the  origin  of  State  Sovereignty  in  our  system ;  to 
a  brief  reference  to  its  logical  outcome  ;  and,  finally,  to 
a  statement  of  the  limitation  placed  upon  it  by  the 
development  of  nationality  recognized  as  supremely 
sovereign.  A  clear  grasp  of  these  fundamental  pro 
positions  and  their  historical  development  is  necessary 
to  any  intelligent  comprehension  of  American  history. 
With  us,  as  with  Great  Britain,  it  has  all  been  a  pro 
cess  of  slow  growth ;  and  in  110  respect  an  extempo 
rized  and  ingenious  invention. 

In  my  next,  or  second,  lecture  I  shall  describe  what 
my  own  investigation  has  led  me  to  consider  the  crisis 
in  the  fierce  struggle  at  the  close  of  a  two-century 
process — that  inner  impulse  which  then  rent  the  veil 
of  the  old  husk — the  deciding  battle  of  underlying 
antagonistic  forces.  The  field  of  that  battle  was  not, 
as  I  see  it,  at  Washington,  or  at  Gettysburg,  nor 
indeed  in  America  at  all ;  it  was  here  in  England — 
here  in  your  Lancashire  cotton-spinning  district  and 
in  Downing  Street.  About  it  too  there  was  some 
thing  Homeric.  A  struggle,  not  of  arms  but  of 
industry  and  ideals ;  it  was  decided  on  no  vulgar 
field  of  fight.  In  it  the  Confederacy  sustained  what 
proved,  in  the  end,  its  fatal  overthrow  ;  and  in  it  figured 
historical  characters  very  familiar  to  English  ears— 
Palmerston  and  Cobden,  Bright  and  Gladstone,  Napo 
leon  III  and  Abraham  Lincoln.  Great  forces  were 
also  there  aligned — forces  moral  as  well  as  material,  of 
which  history  must  now  take  cognizance  and  with 
them  reckon.  Taken  altogether  and  viewed  in  a  half 
century's  perspective,  though  as  yet  unnoticed  by  any 


PKINCIPIA  53 

historian  with  whose  pages  I  am  familiar,  my  topic  for 
next  Wednesday  constitutes  an  episode  in  nineteenth- 
century  history  than  which  none  is  either  more 
dramatic  or  more  pregnant  with  consequences  of 
world-wide  future  significance. 

NOTE  1,  PAGE  47. 

The  question  of  national  citizenship  under  the 
Federal  Constitution,  and  irrespective  of  the  States, 
is  interesting,  and,  in  the  course  of  adjudication,  has 
been  much  discussed.  It  was  finally  provided  for 
by  the  passage  of  the  Fourteenth  Amendment  to  the 
Federal  Constitution,  one  of  the  sequences  of  the 
Civil  War,  adopted  in  1868.  Prior  to  the  incorpo 
ration  of  that  amendment,  there  was  no  constitutional, 
much  less  any  statutory,  provision  covering  the  case ; 
and  if  national  citizenship,  apart  from  citizenship  of 
a  State,  existed  at  all,  and  it  undoubtedly  did  exist, 
it  could  only  have  been  through  custom  meeting  an 
exigency,  and  hardening  into  common,  or  judge-made, 
law.  On  this  point  a  high,  though  lay,  authority  has 
recently  thus  expressed  himself  :— 

It  may,  however,  be  said  that  those  who  totally  deny  the 
possession  by  the  United  States  of  any  common  law  would 
confer  a  favour  upon  us  if  they  would  indicate  from  what 
other  source  citizenship  of  the  United  States  by  birth  was, 
prior  to  the  Fourteenth  Amendment,  universally  derived. 
Citizenship  by  naturalization  was  a  constitutional  status,  for 
Congress  was  expressly  authorized  to  prescribe  a  uniform 
rule  of  naturalization ;  but  prior  to  the  Fourteenth  Amend 
ment,  which  declared  '  all  persons  born  ...  in  the  United 
States,  and  subject  to  the  jurisdiction  thereof,  to  be  'citizens 


54  PEINCIPIA 

of  the  United  States ',  there  was  no  constitutional  definition 
of  national  citizenship  by  birth.  Mr.  Justice  Curtis,  in  his 
dissenting  opinion  in  the  Dred  Scott  case,  argued  that  the 
Constitution  adopted  as  native  American  citizens  such  persons 
as  were  by  birth  '  citizens '  of  the  several  States ;  but  this 
theory  failed  to  account  for  the  fact  that  persons  born  on 
territory  within  the  jurisdiction  of  the  United  States,  but 
not  within  the  jurisdiction  of  any  State,  were  also  regarded 
as  citizens  of  the  United  States.  We  seem  indeed  to  be 
driven  to  accept  as  correct  the  declaration  of  the  Supreme 
Court,  in  1898  (United  States  v.  Wong  Kim  Ark,  169  U.  S.  649, 
675),  that  '  beyond  doubt '  birth  '  within  the  sovereignty  of 
the  United  States'  created,  by  virtue  of  the  rule  of  the 
common  law  operating  thereunder,  national  citizenship. 
John  Bassett  Moore,  Four  Phases  of  American  Development 
(1912),  pp.  58-9. 


II 

THE   CONFEDERATE   COTTON 
CAMPAIGN 

LANCASHIRE,  1861-1862 


II 

THE   CONFEDERATE   COTTON 
CAMPAIGN 

LANCASHIBE,  1861-1862 

GENERAL  FRIEDRICH  VON  BERNHARDI  is  a  distin 
guished  Prussian  army  officer,  ranking  high  as  a  mili 
tary  authority.  As  such  he  not  long  ago  published 
a  volume  which,  translated  into  English,  has  excited 
notice,  and  some  newspaper  and  other  criticisms. 
Written  '  out  of  the  fullness  of  my  Germanic  heart ',  as 
the  author  asseverates,  it  records  matured  convictions. 
With  those  convictions — almost  needless  to  say  belli 
cose  in  the  extreme — I  here  have  nothing  to  do ;  but 
in  the  volume  I  find  two  historical  references  which 
afford  what  may  serve  as  a  text  for  this  the  second 
lecture  of  my  course.  In  Chapter  V  of  General  Bern- 
hardi's  work,  a  chapter  entitled  *  World-Power  or 
Downfall ',  is  the  following :  '  Since  England  com 
mitted  the  unpardonable  blunder,  from  her  point  of 
view,  of  not  supporting  the  Southern  States  in  the 
American  War  of  Secession,  a  rival  to  England's 
world-wide  Empire  has  appeared  on  the  other  side  of 
the  Atlantic  in  the  form  of  the  United  States  of  North 
America,  which  are  a  grave  menace  to  England's 
fortunes.  The  keenest  competition  conceivable  now 
exists  between  the  two  countries.5 

1593  H 


58    THE  CONFEDERATE  COTTON  CAMPAIGN 

Again,  in  a  subsequent  chapter  (XII),  a  chapter 
entitled  '  Preparation  for  the  Next  War ',  General 
Bernhardi  reverts  to  this  topic,  once  more  forcibly 
recording  therein  his  i  Germanic  heart '  conviction. 
Referring  to  Germany's  present  naval  policy,  and 
what  he  terms  i  peace  and  renunciation ',  he  here  says  : 
'  This  policy  somewhat  resembles  the  supineness  for 
which  England  has  herself  to  blame,  when  she  refused 
her  assistance  to  the  Southern  States  in  the  American 
War  of  Secession,  and  thus  allowed  a  power  to  arise 
in  the  form  of  the  United  States  of  North  America 
which  already,  although  barely  fifty  years  have  elapsed, 
threatens  England's  own  position  as  a  World-Power.' 

That  the  struggle  which  this  author  designates,  and 
in  my  opinion  very  correctly  designates,  as  the 
American  War  of  Secession — more  commonly  by  us 
in  America  called  the  Civil  War,  as  if  no  other  civil 
war  had  ever  been  waged — that  this  struggle,  covering 
in  American  history  the  four  years  between  April 
1861  and  April  1865,  does  not  loom  up  in  such  large 
proportions  in  the  British  memory  as  in  ours  I  am 
well  aware.  Here  in  Great  Britain  now  practically  for 
gotten,  at  the  time,  as  I  had  occasion  to  observe  in  my 
previous  lecture,  its  developments  were  watched  with 
the  deepest  interest  by  all  classes.  They  excited,  an 
intensity  of  feeling  at  present  not  easy  to  realize.  ^The 
entire  community  was  in  fact  divided  into  partisans  of 
one  side  of  the  conflict  or  of  the  other,  the  cause  of 
the  Confederacy  enlisting  in  its  support  a  large  pre 
ponderance  of  those  then  constituting  what  were 
known  as  the  English  governing  classes, 


THE  CONFEDERATE  COTTON  CAMPAIGN    59 

This,  however,  was  fifty  years  ago,  and  the  genera 
tion  which,  observing  the  conflict  thus  divided  over 
it,  has  passed  from  the  stage.  Oilier  and  equally 
momentous  struggles  more  immediately  affecting 
British  interests  and  much  nearer  home—  the  Franco- 
Prussian  War  of  1870,  with  its  capitulation  of  Sedan 
and  siege  of  Paris ;  the  Russo-Turkish  War  of  1877, 
with  its  story  of  Plevna ;  your  South  African  War  of 
1898  ;  the  Russo-Japanese  War  of  1905 — all  these  have 
since  occurred,  each  for  the  time  engrossing  attention. 
So  far  as  our  Civil  War  of  half  a  century  ago  is  con 
cerned,  these  I  am  well  aware  have  operated  on  the 
public  memory  here  much  as  a  succession  of  tides  on 
the  sands  of  one  of  your  ocean  beaches.  Through 
their  action  and  agency  previous  footprints  have  been 
effaced. 

It  is  apt  to  be  so ;  and  yet  this  rule  also  has  its 
exceptions.  Take,  for  instance,  the  so-called  Wars  of 
Napoleon — the  life-and-death  struggle  which,  following 
the  outbreak  of  the  French  Revolution,  lasted  almost 
continuously  from  1792  to  1815;  in  spite  of  all  that 
has  since  occurred,  that  conflict  of  peoples  and  of 
giants,  looming  ever  larger  in  history,  dominates  the 
literature  of  to-day. 

I  am,  therefore,  by  no  means  prepared  here  to 
suggest  that  our  American  Civil  War,  however  con 
siderable  in  its  proportions  or  momentous  in  results, 
exceeded  in  its  tragic  elements  or  equalled  in  historic 
significance  other  experiences  of  the  last  century, 
much  less  those  of  all  recorded  times.  Occurring 
fifty  years  since,  as  respects  the  dramatic  element, 


60    THE  CONFEDERATE  COTTON  CAMPAIGN 

while,  as  I  shall  presently  show,  by  no  means  devoid 
thereof  and  that  in  a  large  way,  it  will  in  no  wise 
bear  comparison  with  another  and  earlier  experience 
—the  Napoleonic  drama,  working  rapidly  out  of  its 
tragic  Russian  phase  to  its  close  at  Waterloo  exactly 
a  century  ago. 

And  yet  premising  all  this,  here  is  a  German  utter 
ance  of  to-day  referring  to  our  struggle  as  one  of 
world-moment,  characterizing  the  British  policy 
then  pursued  as  an  l  unpardonable  blunder '  involving 
to-day  l grave  menaces'  to  England's  fortunes,  even 
threatening  England's  position  as  a  '  World-Power '. 
And  this  utterance  suggests  material  more  than 
sufficient  for  an  hour's  discourse,  So  to-day  I  propose 
to  recall  the  events  of  a  most  critical  as  well  as  dra 
matic  situation,  and  to  lay  bare,  if  I  can,  the  hidden 
motives  which  then  influenced,  and  in  the  end 
controlled,  the  momentous  policy  pursued  by  the 
British  Government.  An  interesting  as  well  as 
highly  suggestive  page  of  history,  it  is  as  yet  un- 
handled  in  any  narrative. 

To  make  plain  the  situation  it  is  necessary  to  refer 
in  a  certain  detail  to  events  and  personages  now  in 
a  great  degree  forgotten,  but  which,  recalled,  still 
possess  interest. 

At  the  close  of  my  last  lecture,  it  will  be  remem 
bered,  I  referred  to  the  formal  secession  from  the 
American  Union  of  eleven  of  the  States  so-called 
sovereign,  and  their  organization  into  a  new  nation 
ality  calling  itself  the  Confederate  States  of  America. 
This  occurred  during  the  winter  and  spring  months 


THE  CONFEDERATE  COTTON  CAMPAIGN    61 

of  1861,  and  led  to  an  immediate  outbreak  of  hostili 
ties  between  the  two  organizations— the  Union,  con 
sisting  of  the  States  which  remained  loyal  to  the 
National  Government,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
Confederacy.  The  issue  of  nationality  was  thus  at  last 
squarely  presented :  it  was,  as  I  said  in  my  last 
lecture,  more,  far  more,  than  a  question  of  constitu 
tional  law  and  the  construction  either  in  language  or 
in  spirit  to  be  given  to  any  parchment.  Immediate 
material  results,  or  even  the  question  of  human  servi 
tude,  were  in  the  conflict  ensuing  minor  considerations. 
What  was  then  in  process,  as  I  a  week  ago  pointed 
out,  far  transcended  all  this — it  was  in  fact  the  final 
birth-throe  which  preceded  the  appearance  on  this 
planet  of  a  consolidated  nationality—  a  new  World- 
Power  of  the  first  magnitude. 

It  is  proverbially  easy  to  be  wise  after  the  event ; 
and  to  the  modern  investigator,  especially  if  European, 
the  cause  of  the  American  Civil  War  is  now  deemed 
obvious  ;  and,  in  view  of  the  immense  preponderance 
of  strength  and  resources — men,  money,  munitions — 
indisputably,  and  from  the  beginning,  enjoyed  by  one 
of  the  parties  in  the  strife,  its  outcome  was  inevitable. 
These  discrepancies  considered,  the  only  real  occasion 
for  surprise,  it  is  now  alleged,  was  that  the  weaker 
party  ever  challenged  the  conflict ;  and  the  conclusion 
finally  reached  is  that,  under  the  circumstances,  the 
length  to  which  the  hopeless  conflict  was  protracted 
was  not  over  and  above  creditable  to  the  party  finally 
triumphant. 

With   a   plausible   sound,  this   is   a   very   shallow 


62    THE  CONFEDERATE  COTTON  CAMPAIGN 

generalization.  Nor  is  it  in  accordance  with  facts ; 
for  it  so  chanced  that  in  1861,  when  the  slowly  gather 
ing  tempest  broke,  a  census  of  the  entire  United 
States  had  just  been  taken,  and  every  figure  now  open 
to  the  investigator  was  then  published.  The  public  men 
and  journalists  of  the  South  had  studied  the  tables  of 
the  census ;  Europe  had  free  access  to  them.  And 
yet  in  the  spring  of  1861  and  during  three  of  the  four 
years  of  following  strife'  no  Southern  man  felt  a  doubt 
as  to  the  final  result,  and  no  unprejudiced  observer  any 
where  believed  that  the  subjugation  of  the  Confederacy 
was  probable.  The  restoration  of  the  old  Union  was 
considered,  humanly  speaking,  an  impossibility.  The 
Confederacy  numbered  eight  millions.  No  community 
numbering  eight  millions  as  well  organized  and  com 
bative  as  the  Confederacy,  ever  yet  had  been  overcome 
in  the  outcome  of  a  civil  war,  nor  was  there  any 
sufficient  reason  for  supposing  that  the  present  case 
would  prove  an  exception  to  a  rule  hitherto  without 
exceptions.  Such  was  the  belief  currently  entertained. 
Moreover,  it  is  a  well-established  historical  fact  that 
every  single  representative  of  a  foreign  nation  then 
resident  in  Washington,  in  1861  and  1862  regarded 
the  division  of  the  American  Union  as  practically 
accomplished  ;  they  all  took  for  granted  the  conclusion 
later  expressed  by  Mr.  Gladstone,  that  the  success  of 
the  Southern  States,  so  far  as  regarded  their  sepa 
ration  from  the  States  of  the  North,  was  an  event 
as  certain  as  any  event  yet  future  and  contingent 
could  be. 

Neither  is  it  true  that  the  outcome  of  the  struggle 


THE  CONFEDERATE  COTTON  CAMPAIGN    63 

was  from  its  commencement  inevitable.  On  the  con 
trary,  I  with  confidence  maintain  that  the  result  was 
in  the  beginning  to  the  last  degree  doubtful ;  and, 
indeed,  throughout  the  entire  first  half  of  the  con 
flict — that  is,  until  the  summer  of  1863 — the  chances 
largely  favoured  the  Confederacy.  Finally,  its  failure 
was  due  to  contingencies  not  possible  to  forecast, 
and  against  which  no  human  sagacity  could  have 
provided. 

In  the  first  place,  as  respects  the  cause  of  the  con 
flict  and  the  parties  to  it.  And  here  I  must  severely 
condense.  The  slave-owning  States  constituted  in 
1860  a  geographical  section  occupied  by  a  community 
almost  exclusively  devoted  to  agricultural  pursuits, 
and  leading  to  a  certain  extent  a  patriarchal  existence. 
Contented  with  their  lot,  they  neither  desired  nor 
countenanced  change.  Intensely  provincial,  as  is  the 
wont  of  all  agricultural  and  patriarchal  communities, 
they  looked  upon  the  diversified  industrial  com 
munities  of  the  North,  their  partners  in  the  common 
country,  with  a  contempt  they  felt  no  call  to  conceal. 
Believing  themselves  to  be  in  all  respects  a  superior 
race,  they  were,  moreover,  persuaded  that  the  world 
and  its  future  were  theirs.  In  view  of  what  sub 
sequently  occurred  this  sounds  absurd.  I  have  no 
time  in  which  to  marshal  evidence  of  the  truth  of 
what  I  have  said  ;  but  listen  to  a  few  of  their  utter 
ances.  J.  H.  Hammond,  an  ex-Governor  of  South 
Carolina,  a  Senator  of  the  United  States  upon  whom 
had  fallen  the  mantle  of  Calhoun,  was  a  representative 
Southern  man.  As  such  men  went,  he  was  thoughtful 


64:    THE  CONFEDERATE  COTTON  CAMPAIGN 

and  observant.  Writing  in  April  preceding  by  a  year 
the  breaking  out  of  the  Civil  War,  Mr.  Hammond 
thus  expressed  himself:  'I  firmly  believe  that  the 
slave-holding  South  is  now  the  controlling  power  of 
the  world ;  that  no  other  power  would  face  us  in  hos 
tility.  This  will  be  demonstrated  if  we  come  to  the 
ultimate.  I  have  no  wish  to  bring  it  about,  yet  I  am 
perfectly  ready  if  others  do.  There  might  be  with  us 
commotion  for  a  time ;  but  cotton,  rice,  tobacco  and 
naval  stores  command  the  world ;  and  we  have  sense 
enough  to  know  it,  and  are  sufficiently  Teutonic  to 
carry  it  out  successfully.  The  North,  without  us, 
would  be  a  motherless  calf,  bleating  about,  and  die  of 
mange  and  starvation.1 

Thus  the  Confederacy  did  not  go  into  the  conflict  of 
1861  unadvisedly.  On  the  contrary,  its  leaders  gave 
what  at  the  time  they  considered  full  consideration 
to  all  the  factors  on  either  side  essential  to  success. 
They  reckoned  without  their  host ;  but,  none  the  less, 
they  did  reckon.  For  instance,  take  the  matter  of  the 
blockade,  an  inevitable  incident  to  the  struggle  should 
it  come  about,  and,  finally,  when  it  did  come  about, 
the  controlling  factor  in  its  outcome.  The  very  James 
H.  Hammond,  from  a  letter  of  whom  I  have  just 
quoted,  thus,  in  a  speech  delivered  in  the  United  States 
Senate  Chamber  in  1858,  which  I  shall  again  have  oc 
casion  to  refer  to,  summarily  and  contemptuously  dis 
missed  as  an  absurdity  the  idea  of  an  effective  blockade 
of  the  Confederate  coasts  in  case  of  war.  He  said : 
'We  have  3,000  miles  of  continental  sea-shore  line 
so  indented  with  bays  and  crowded  with  islands 


THE  CONFEDERATE  COTTON  CAMPAIGN    65 

that  when  their  shore-lines  are  added,  we  have  12,000 
miles  .  .  .  Can  you  hem  in  such  a  territory  as  that  ? 
You  talk  of  putting  up  a  wall  of  fire  around  850,000 
square  miles  so  situated  !  How  absurd  ! '  As  respects 
the  undervaluation  of  the  prospective  opponent,  the 
mental  condition  of  the  South  in  1861  was  well  calcu 
lated  to  excite  subsequent  historic  doubt ;  for,  curious 
as  it  sounds  in  view  of  the  ultimate  outcome  of  the 
struggle,  there  is  no  exaggeration  in  the  statement 
that  in  the  first  flush  of  war  the  masses  of  the  South 
really  believed  that  one  Southerner  '  could  whip  a 
half-dozen  Yankees  and  not  half  try'. 

/As  respects  that  factor  of  self-deception,  the  well- 
nigh  inconceivable  overvaluation  of  itself  by  the  South 
as  a  commercial  world-power,  the  mere  mention  of 
the  delusion  recalls  to  every  American's  memory  the 
once  familiar,  now  forgotten,  postulate,  i  Cotton  is 
King !'  /  Inconceivable,  meaningless  now  to  the 
European,  to  the  South  its  infatuation  on  this  point 
was  in  1860  the  fruitful  mother  of  calamity ;  for  the 
commercial  supremacy  of  cotton,  accepted  as  a 
fundamental  truth,  was  made  the  basis  of  political 
action.  The  statement  of  the  unquestioning  faith 
in  which  that  patriarchal  community  cherished 
this  belief,  now  passed  out  of  memory,  savours  of 
exaggeration.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  does  not  ad 
mit  of  overstatement.  For  instance,  what  modern 
historical  presentation  could  be  so  framed  as  to 
exceed  in  strength,  broadness  and  colour  the 
following  from  the  speech  just  referred  to  as  de 
livered,  March  4,  1858,  by  James  H.  Hammond, 

1593  I 


66    THE  CONFEDERATE  COTTON  CAMPAIGN 

representing   and   voicing   South   Carolina.      Senator 
Hammond  then  said  :— 

But  if  there  were  no  other  reason  why  we  should  never 
have  war,  would  any  sane  nation  make  war  on  cotton  ? 
Without  firing  a  gun,  without  drawing  a  sword,  should  they 
make  war  on  us  we  could  bring  the  whole  world  to  our  feet. 
The  South  is  perfectly  competent  to  go  on  one,  two,  or  three 
years  without  planting  a  seed  of  cotton.  .  .  .  What  would 
happen  if  no  cotton  was  furnished  for  three  years  ?  I  will 
not  stop  to  depict  what  every  one  can  imagine,  but  this 
is  certain :  England  would  topple  headlong  and  carry  the 
whole  civilized  world  with  her,  save  the  South.  No,  you 
dare  not  make  war  on  cotton.  No  power  on  earth  dares 
to  make  war  upon  it.  Cotton  is  King.  Until  lately  the 
Bank  of  England  was  king,  but  she  tried  to  put  her  screws 
as  usual,  the  fall  before  the  last,  upon  the  cotton  crop,  and 
was  utterly  vanquished.  The  last  power  has  been  conquered. 
Who  can  doubt,  that  has  looked  at  recent  events,  that  cotton 
is  supreme  ?  l 

Thus,  in  complete  provincialism  and  childlike  faith, 
a  community  was  willing  to  venture,  and  actually 
did  venture,  life,  fortune  and  sacred  honour  on  its 
contempt  for  those  composing  the  largest  part  of 
the  community  of  which  they  were  themselves  but 
a  minority.  They  staked  their  all  on  the  soundness 
of  a  commercial  theory  politically  applied. 

But  perhaps  the  curious  and  complete  state  of 
misapprehension,  material  and  moral,  then  pervading 
the  Southern  community  has  best  been  described  by 
a  Southerner  who  himself  at  the  time  shared  in  it  to 
the  full  extent.  Writing  nearly  fifty  years  later,  he 

1  Selections  from  the  Letters  and  Speeches  of  James  H.  Hammond 
(New  York,  1866),  pp.  316,  317. 


THE  CONFEDERATE  COTTON  CAMPAIGN    67 

said:  'Two  ideas,  however,  seemed  [in  1861]  to 
pervade  all  classes.  One  was  that  keystone  dogma 
of  secession,  "  Cotton  is  King ! "  the  other  that  the 
war — did  one  come — could  not  last  over  three  months. 
The  man  who  ventured  to  dissent  from  either  idea, 
back  it  by  what  logic  he  might,  was  looked  upon  as 
an  idiot,  if  his  disloyalty  was  not  broadly  hinted 
at.' l 

Had  the  theory  as  respects  the  potency  of  cotton  on 
which  the  South  went  into  the  war  been  sound,  the 
blockade  would  have  proved  the  Confederacy's  most 
effective  ally ;  for  the  blockade  shut  off  from  Europe 
its  supply  of  cotton  as  it  could  have  been  shut  off  by 
no  other  possible  agency.  The  Government  of  the 
Union  in  so  far  played  the  game  of  the  Confederacy, 
and  played  it  effectively.  In  the  early  days  of  the 
struggle,  they  even  in  their  self-delusion  talked  at 
Richmond  of  an  export  duty  on  their  one  great  staple, 
and  of  inhibiting  its  out-go  altogether;  but  the  blockade 
made  quite  unnecessary  any  action  of  that  nature. 
Through  the  blockade  the  cotton-screw,  so  to  speak, 
was  applied  to  the  fullest  possible  extent.  Nor  was 
the  overthrow  of  the  potentate  easily  brought  about. 
Well  entrenched,  dethroning  him  entailed  on  the 
commercial  world  one  of  the  most  severe  trials  it  has 
ever  been  called  upon  to  pass  through.  Not  all  that 
Mr.  Hammond  predicted,  or  that  the  Confederate 
leaders  confidently  looked  to  see  happen,  actually  did 
happen  ;  but,  none  the  less,  the  overthrow  of  the 

1  T.  C.  De  Leon,  Belles,  Beaux,  and  Brains  of  the  '60s  (1907), 
p.  50. 


68    THE  CONFEDERATE  COTTON  CAMPAIGN 

Confederate  Cotton  idol  involved  a  commercial  and 
industrial  disturbance  of  the  first  magnitude . 

In  addition  to  being  titanic,  it  was  also  in  the 
highest  degree  dramatic,  for  it  involved  nationalities, 
governments,  and  financial  interests.  All  forgotten 
now,  passed  wholly  from  memory,  it  was  at  the  time 
of  a  magnitude,  interest  and  pathos  not  easy  to  exag 
gerate.  It  had  in  it  an  element  of  the  Homeric  ;  and, 
to  the  participants,  it  sometimes  so  appeared.  Thus, 
for  example,  in  glancing  not  long  ago  over  a  recently 
published  biography  of  Mrs.  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe, 
the  author  of  Uncle  Tom's  Ccibin,  of  which  I  shall  pre 
sently  have  more  to  say,  I  came  across  this  contempo 
raneous  reference :  '  Even  the  Greek  mind  never 
conceived  a  tragedy  more  terrible  than  the  war 
between  the  States  of  North  America.'  This  was  not 
by  Mrs.  Stowe  ;  it  is  an  extract  from  a  letter  written 
by  a  dying  Confederate  soldier  to  his  mother  from  the 
field  of  battle.  A  young  man  about  to  enter  the  Pres 
byterian  ministry,  he  had  joined  the  army  of  the  South 
in  a  true  crusading  spirit,  and  the  whole  tone  of  what 
he  wrote  breathed  satisfaction  that  it  had  been  given 
him  to  lay  down  his  life  for  the  cause  of  God  and  Truth 
as  he  saw  it,  as  against  injustice  and  oppression.  The 
instance  was  not  otherwise  than  typica]. 

Lancashire  was  the  scene  of  conflict,  and  I  have 
referred  to  the  powers,  potentates  and  principalities 
directly  and  indirectly  participants  in  the  battle 
there  waged.  Let  me  briefly  marshal  the  two  arrays. 
Here,  alone,  as  you  will  presently  see,  is  the  material 
for  an  entire  course  of  lectures,  not  one  of  which  would 


THE  CONFEDERATE  COTTON  CAMPAIGN    69 

be  lacking  in  interest,  especially  in  Oxford ;  and  this 
I  must  compress  into  a  few  brief  paragraphs.  I  will 
endeavour  to  do  so. 

In  the  assemblage  of  conflicting  forces,  those  mar 
shalled  on  behalf  of  the  Confederacy  vastly  and  in 
every  respect  preponderated ;  they  did  so,  indeed, 
to  a  degree  which  now,  viewed  historically,  should, 
judging  by  the  test  of  all  human  experiences,  have  been 
conclusive  of  the  outcome.  It  was  suggestive  of  Pope's 
enumeration  of  the  Homeric  heavenly  allies  of  Troy 
in  his  versified  but  most  un-Homeric  rendering  of  the 
Iliad  :— 

In  aid  of  Troy  Minerva,  Phoebus  came, 
Mars  fiery  helmed,  the  laughter-loving  dame, 
Zanthus,  whose  streams  in  golden  currents  flow, 
And  the  chaste  goddess  of  the  silver  bow. 

So  now,  in  aid  of  the  defiant,  slave-holding  Con 
federacy  came,  first,  the  great  British  and  Continental 
commercial,  financial,  and  cotton-spinning  interests, 
with  their  far-reaching  political  influence ;  next,  the 
suffering  textile  operatives,  not  only  of  Lancashire  but 
wherever  throughout  other  countries  cotton  was  woven 
into  cloth — they  numbered  millions  ;  third,  the  entire 
governing  classes,  as  they  then  were,  of  Great  Britain, 
including  the  great  landed  interest.  These  last  also 
were  voiced,  and  most  persistently  as  well  as  power 
fully  voiced,  by  the  London  Times,  known  as  '  The 
Thunderer',  at  the  acme  of  its  great  and  memorable 
career.  Finally,  the  French  Emperor ;  for  Napoleon 
III,  now  at  the  height  of  his  prestige,  for  reasons  of 
state  to  which  I  shall  presently  make  brief  reference, 


70    THE  CONFEDEKATE  COTTON  CAMPAIGN 

was  disposed  to  put  forth  on  behalf  of  the  Confederacy 
all  the  influence  he  could  exert.  A  powerful  combina 
tion,  it  was  one,  in  a  worldly  and  political  sense,  well- 
nigh  irresistible. 

Opposed  to  it  was  an  array  so  apparently  meagre  as 
to  be  almost  pitiable;  and  if  the  alliance  of  forces 
I  have  just  described  recalled  Homer,  that  set  over 
against  it  was  not  less  suggestive  biblically — it  was 
David  again  confronting  Goliath.  Strange,  wellnigh 
inconceivable,  when  now  asserted  in  the  full  light  of 
the  event,  that  opposing  array  consisted  simply  of 
John  Bright,  the  Tribune  in  Great  Britain  of  Political 
and  Industrial  Democracy,  and  behind  him  'a  little 
bit  of  a  woman ',  as  she  at  that  time  described  herself, 
1  just  as  thin  and  dry  as  a  pinch  of  snuff,'  holding  in 
her  hand  a  book  :  but  the  woman  was  Harriet  Beecher 
Stowe,  and  the  book  was  entitled  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin; 
or,  Life  among  the  Lowly. 

As  I  make  this  statement — present  that  contrast— 
I  know  well  enough  not  a  few  of  those  listening  will 
smile  in  a  spirit  inwardly  derisive.  Setting  it  down 
to  the  account  of  exaggeration,  they  will  dismiss  my 
marshalling  of  forces  as  an  attempt  at  the  picturesque 
in  speech.  I  none  the  less  adhere  to  what  I  have  said 
as  a  correct  historic  presentation  ;  and,  did  time  permit, 
I  would  undertake  to  prove  it  such.  But,  for  so  doing, 
one  lecture  would  not  suffice ;  four  lectures  might. 
In  fewest  words  possible  I  will  set  forth  the  facts. 

In  contrasting  the  two  arrays  on  that  Lancashire 
field  of  battle,  I  enumerated  five  separate  factors,  each 
powerful,  all  working  unitedly  to  promote  the  cause 


THE  CONFEDERATE  COTTON  CAMPAIGN    71 

of  the  Confederacy.  First,  and  most  potent,  among 
these  were  the  British  and  Continental  commercial, 
financial,  and  cotton-manufacturing  interests.  Upon 
them  I  need  not  dwell.  Their  all-pervading  influence 
is  too  well  known  to  make  enlargement  thereon  need 
ful.  They  represent  the  pocket  nerve;  and,  when 
that  is  touched,  as  we  all  know,  the  system  vibrates 
through  all  its  parts.  So  let  them  pass. 

Next  came  the  textile  operatives,  the  cotton  spin 
ners,  whether  of  Lancashire  or  in  France.  With  them 
it  was  a  question  of  bread,  rent  and  raiment ;  and  on 
them  the  screws  were  put.  In  their  case,  cotton 
scarcity  was  synonymous  with  famine.  The  fore 
ordained  victims  of  that  encounter,  how  would  they, 
a  mighty  multitude,  bear  themselves  in  the  cruel 
ordeal?  We  will  presently  see  how  they  did  bear 
themselves.  Then  followed  the  aristocracy  and  gentry 
of  England  ;  the  landed  and  governmental  interests  of 
Great  Britain  and  France.  These,  at  that  day  the 
controlling  factor  in  politics,  were  lined  up  almost 
solidly  on  behalf  of  the  Confederacy.  It  was  with 
them  a  matter  of  instinct  quickened  into  action  by  self- 
interest;  but,  as  your  recent  political  outcome  has 
clearly  shown,  that  instinct  then  inspired  and  impelled 
a  class  not  less  truly  than  on  a  well-known  occasion 
the  instinct  of  Sir  John  Falstaff  acted,  according  to  his 
own  asseveration,  in  restraining  his  valour.  Tennyson 
in  his  Locksley  Hall,  printed  a  score  of  years  before,  had 
prefigured  it  all — foreshadowed  it  on  the  Future's  wall : 

Slowly  comes  a  hungry  people,  as  a  lion,  creeping  nigher, 
Glares  at  one  that  nods  and  winks  behind  a  slowly-dying  fire. 


72    THE  CONFEDERATE  COTTON  CAMPAIGN 

The  'hungry  people'  in  this  case  was  simply 
Democracy,  so  phrased;  and  in  1862  the  spectre 
Democracy  was,  in  the  English  mind,  typified  in  the 
trans-Atlantic  English-speaking  Republic.  It  was 
typified,  too,  in  a  way  singularly  contradictory.  On 
the  one  side  was  a  truly  Democratic  community, 
living  under  a  republican  form  of  government ;  and, 
on  the  other,  developing  itself  in  that  same  nation 
ality,  was  a  social  and  industrial  organization  with 
slavery  as  its  admitted  basis.  That  such  a  condition 
of  affairs  invited  criticism  was  natural.  That  it  had 
received  it  from  English  observers,  travellers  and 
writers — and  that  in  a  way  which  certainly  did  not 
lack  in  outspoken  frankness — is  matter  of  record ; 
read  now,  for  instance,  Charles  Dickens 's  American 
Notes.  Meanwhile,  a  world-process  plainly  indicative 
of  an  advancing  stage  of  moral  development  had  been 
going  on,  not  without  its  distinct  manifestations  in 
Great  Britain.  While  the  dislike  and  fear  of  De 
mocracy  were  pronounced  in  one  most  influential 
portion  of  the  community— the  nobility  and  landed 
gentry,  and  upper-middle  class — in  those  same  classes, 
and  yet  more  below  in  the  great  sleeping  but  seething 
mass  of  the  community,  the  feeling  against  African 
slavery  as  it  had  existed  in  the  West  Indian  Islands, 
and  still  did  exist  in  the  United  States,  had  become 
a  cult.  True,  among  the  more  comfortably  placed  and 
materially  well-to-do  it  had  long  since  degenerated,  as 
cults  will,  into  a  Pharisaic  better-than-thou  cant ;  but 
there  was  no  question  it  still  had  a  strong  hold  on 
the  public  mind  and  conscience. 


THE  CONFEDERATE  COTTON  CAMPAIGN    73 

This,  however,  notwithstanding,  class  feeling,  class 
interests  and  social  prestige  overwhelmingly  carried 
the  day  ;  and  it  is  susceptible  of  historic  proof  that  in 
1862  at  least  nine  out  of  ten  of  those  constituting  the 
classes  referred  to,  sympathizing  with  the  Slave-holding 
Confederacy,  exerted  their  whole  influence  to  forward 
its  interests.  They  fully  believed  also  that  its  success 
was  assured. 

Next  in  the  array  on  the  side  of  the  Confederacy 
I  have  named  'The  Thunderer' — the  London  Times 
newspaper  of  that  mid-century  period.  But  here,  on 
the  threshold  of  a  most  tempting  topic,  I  must  hold 
my  hand.  To  that  subject  justice  could  not  possibly 
be  done  in  the  fragment  of  an  hour,  and  to  that  my 
time  is  limited.  Suffice  it  therefore  to  say  that,  now, 
the  Times  is  a  journal  of  very  considerable  influence ; 
but  in  comparison  with  what  it  was  fifty  years  ago, 
and  during  our  Civil  War,  it  is  but  the  shadow  of  its 
former  self.  This  topic,  here  summarized  in  a  single 
paragraph,  would  in  itself  afford  the  material  for 
an  entire  lecture,  and  a  most  interesting  as  well  as 
instructive  lecture ;  one,  too,  not  without  its  dis 
tinctly  humorous  side. 

^Never  perhaps  on  this  earth  has  any  public  organ 
occupied  the  position  the  Times  held  during  the  period 
referred  to,  or  possessed  the  same  journalistic  power. 
In  America  especially  '  The  Thunderer '  loomed  very 
large ;  and  a  carefully  studied  review  of  the  policy  as 
respects  American  affairs  pursued  by  it  during  those 
eventful  years — a  review  prepared  without  temper 
and  in  a  purely  judicial  and  investigating  spirit — would 


74    THE  CONFEDERATE  COTTON  CAMPAIGN 

constitute  a  truly  valuable  historical  contribution, 
especially  if  seasoned  with  a  restrained  sarcasm  and 
strictly  subdued  sense  of  the  ridiculous.  The  language 
as  respects  American  men  and  events  then  habitually 
indulged  in  on  the  Times  editorial  page  seems  now 
inconceivable  ;  its  arrogance  knew  no  bounds,  and  the 
scorn  it  expressed  for  those  of  the  Free  States  was 
limited  only  by  its  command  of  speech  at  once  vitu 
perative  and  contemptuous  :  we  were  a  degenerate 
and  insensate  people — braggart,  vulgar,  sordid,  cor 
rupt  and  cowardly ;  blindly  striving  for  an  impos 
sible  result,  in  that  we  would  persist  in  our  attempt 
1  to  conquer  a  nation,  to  escape  whose  victorious  arms 
is  the  only  triumph  their  [our]  generals  seemed  capable 
of  gaining '.  Abraham  Lincoln  was  the  especial  object 
of  its  disdain  ;  and  as  long  ago  as  1867  an  English 
contributor  to  the  North  American  Revietv,  remarking 
on  our  misconceptions  of  English  public  men  and 
events,  philosophically  and  truly  observed  in  con 
clusion  :  '  But  they  have  never  so  misconceived  a 
British  statesman  as,  four  years  ago,  we  misconceived 
Mr.  Lincoln,  or  gone  so  far  astray  in  regard  to  any 
crisis  of  our  history  as  we  did  in  reference  to  the 
moving  springs  and  results  of  their  civil  war.'  And  in 
this  misconception  and  going  astray  l  The  Thunderer ' 
blazed  and  made  broad  the  path.  In  wrong-headed- 
ness  it  fairly  bore  the  palm. 

/Thus  the  Times  was  probably  the  most  influential 
single  factor  in  the  formidable  pro-Confederate  array  on 
that  Lancashire  field  of  battled  Its  utterances,  more 
over,  not  only  expressed  what  was  passing  in  the  minds 


THE  CONFEDERATE  COTTON  CAMPAIGN    75 

of  its  great  and  influential  constituency,  but  to  a  large 
extent  foreshadowed  during  the  year  1862  the  Cabinet 
action  and  foreign  policy  of  Great  Britain.  This,  at 
the  time  surmised,  we  now  know.  Palmerstoii  confi 
dentially  inspired  Delane. 

The  fourth  and  final  factor  in  the  strange  combina 
tion  I  am  describing  was  the  French  emperor — last 
mentioned,  in  influence  by  no  means  least.  In  1862, 
the  period  under  consideration,  Napoleon  III  was 
at  the  climax  of  his  imperial  career.  Closing  the 
Crimean  War  by  the  Treaty  of  Paris  in  1855,  four 
years  later  he  had  emerged  from  the  Italian  campaign 
through  the  Peace  of  Villa  Franca,  if  not  in  a  blaze  of 
glory,  at  least  with  credit.  France  posed  as  the 
arbiter  of  Europe  ;  Great  Britain  was  its  ally.  Emperor 
in  fact  as  well  as  in  name,  no  forecast  of  the  fate  not 
remotely  in  store  for  his  dynasty  and  for  the  country 
he  ruled  had  yet  dawned  on  the  somewhat  grotesque 
prisoner  of  Ham,  much  less  was  it  imagined  by  the 
world.  In  appearance  not  less  firmly  fixed  on  the 
imperial  throne  than  his  uncle  after  Tilsit,  Louis 
Napoleon  was  already  entered  on  the  first  stage  of  that 
policy  which,  eight  years  later,  led  to  his  downfall. 
He  had  entered  upon  it  also  in  a  way  which  directly 
involved  him  in  American  complications. 

As  we  now  know,  Napoleon  III  was  a  dreamer, 
a  visionary ;  but  at  the  time  with  which  I  am  dealing 
he  was  not  so  considered.  Looked  upon  as  a  sagacious, 
far-seeing  political  schemer,  he  had  recently  as  a  man 
of  action  twice  involved  Europe  in  war ;  and  few 
doubted  his  power  or  readiness  again  so  to  do  if  the 


76    THE  CONFEDERATE  COTTON  CAMPAIGN 

furtherance  of  hidden  policies  might  thereby  be 
promoted.  That  the  French  taste  for  the  grandiose 
and  scenic  must  periodically  be  gratified  was  moreover 
fundamental  in  the  Napoleonic  legend.  Accordingly 
one  of  the  somewhat  Argonautic  dreams  in  which  the 
Emperor  indulged  was  that  of  a  renewal  of  the  French 
trans-Atlantic  dominion,  lost  in  one  region  when  in 
1765  Wolfe  scaled  the  heights  of  Quebec,  and  again 
sacrificed  in  another  for  a  mere  mess  of  pottage  when 
in  1803  the  first  Napoleon  made  over  the  vast  Louis 
iana  domain  to  the  United  States.  In  1861  the 
occasion  seemed  opportune.  The  American  political 
waters  were  sorely  troubled,  and,  angling  in  them, 
Napoleon  thought  to  please  France  by  restoring  to  it 
trans- Atlantic  dominion  under  the  guise  of  a  Latin 
sphere  of  French  influence.  And,  curiously  enough,  in 
this,  historically  adjudged  the  wildest  and  most  vision 
ary  of  his  projects,  Louis  Napoleon  did  in  fact  but 
anticipate  a  future  not  then  remote.  For  in  1860  it  is 
to  be  remembered  the  Manchester  School,  so  called, 
was  dominant  in  England  politically,  and  the 
Manchester  School  never  wearied  of  preaching  the 
homely  domestic  virtues ;  for  a  nation  like  an  indivi 
dual  to  stay  at  home  and  mind  its  own  business,  setting 
an  example  in  this  respect  to  every  other  community, 
was  a  cardinal  article  of  Manchester  faith.  Accord 
ingly  the  colonial  systems  and  foreign  spheres  of 
influence,  now  considered  so  necessary  to  national 
development,  were  looked  upon  as  burdens.  Disraeli, 
for  instance,  talked  of  our  'wretched  dependencies', 
and  Gladstone  accepted  this  idea  to  the  extent  that  he 


THE  CONFEDERATE  COTTON  CAMPAIGN    77 

was  willing  in  every  way  to  facilitate  the  separation 
of  the  oversea  British  dependencies  from  the  Mother 
Country.  The  extent  to  which  the  opposite  policy  now 
prevails  need  not  be  dwelt  upon.  That  it  is  just  as 
dangerous  for  a  statesman  to  whom  is  entrusted  the 
policy  of  a  great  empire  to  be  in  advance  of  the  fad  of 
the  times  as  it  is  to  be  behind  it,  is  a  familiar  common 
place.  And  thus  it  so  chanced  that  Louis  Napoleon, 
in  the  matter  of  oversea  spheres  of  influence,  was 
merely  fifty  years  in  advance  of  the  age  that  now  is. 

Nevertheless,  this  policy,  whether  visionary  or  only 
premature,  radically  affected  the  views  entertained 
by  the  French  emperor  as  to  American  politics.  The 
breaking  up  of  the  Union  was  essential  to  the  success 
of  his  Mexican  plans ;  and  as  I  have  already  said,  the 
cotton  famine  afforded  most  opportune  occasion  for 
the  exercise  of  influence  to  that  end.  So  the  emperor 
thought  to  pose  before  France  as  the  friend  and  bene 
factor  of  the  idle  and  hungry  operative.  The  efforts 
of  the  Imperial  Government  were,  accordingly,  now 
directed  towards  bringing  about  a  joint  intervention 
of  Great  Britain  and  France  in  our  American  conflict ; 
which  intervention  could  hardly  have  failed  to  result 
in  a  breaking  of  the  blockade  of  the  Confederacy  sea- 
coast,  and  the  consequent  division  of  the  Union.  The 
adoption  of  this  policy  by  the  Palmerston-Eussell 
Government  was  the  only  thing  necessary  to  success. 

On  the  other  hand,  arrayed  against  the  combination 
I  have  described,  was  simply  one  English  public  man, 
the  recognized  head  of  the  dreaded  and  ever  encroach 
ing  Democracy  ;  and,  as  she  portrayed  herself  in  words 


78    THE  CONFEDERATE  COTTON  CAMPAIGN 

I  have  already  quoted,  i  a  little  bit  of  a  woman  .  .  .  just 
as  thin  and  dry  as  a  pinch  of  snuff,'  holding  in  her 
hand  a  printed  book  ! 

Of  these,  the  oddly  assorted  champions  of  that 
momentous  far-reaching  combat,  time  again  will  not 
suffice  to  enable  me  adequately  to  speak  ;  neither  would 
it  be  right  for  an  instant  to  suggest  that  John  Bright 
was  the  single  advocate  in  Great  Britain  of  the  com 
bined  cause  of  the  African  slave  and  American 
nationality.  Others,  some  in  the  Ministry  and  even  in 
the  Cabinet — W.  E.  Forster,  Milner  Gibson,  the  Duke 
of  Argyll — acted  with  him.  Outspoken,  whether  in 
Parliament  or  Exeter  Hall,  were  also  Thomas  Bayley 
Potter,  the  organizer  of  the  Cobden  Club ;  and,  after 
the  first  few  months  of  the  struggle,  Richard  Cobden 
himself.  With  them  were  John  Stuart  Mill,  Thomas 
Hughes,  and,  above  all  in  University  circles,  Professor 
Goldwin  Smith,  then  a  comparatively  young  man. 
It  is  nevertheless,  speaking  within  bounds,  to  say  that, 
when  it  came  to  the  working-man,  the  operative,  John 
Bright  at  that  time  of  crisis  voiced  the  British  Demo 
cracy  at  large.  Like  the  Times  with  its  constituency, 
he  gave  utterance  to  what  was  passing  in  the  mind  and 
breast  of  the  wage-earner.  Then  at  the  acme  of  his 
great  odium  among  those  who  constituted  English  social 
life,  Bright  had  recently  been  characterized  by  Tenny 
son  in  Maud,  his  latest  poem,  and  in  every  one's  hands, 

as 

This  broad-brim'd  hawker  of  holy  thiogs ; 

but  he  none  the  less,  sympathizing  with  those  of  it, 
gave  fearless  utterance  to  the  sentiments  of  the  great, 


THE  CONFEDERATE  COTTON  CAMPAIGN    79 

if  otherwise  largely  inarticulate  class  in  the  community 
whose  action  in  this  particular  contingency  was  to 
prove  decisive  of  results.  It  is,  therefore,  only  fair 
and  historically  reasonable  to  embody  in  the  person 
and  voice  of  John  Bright  that  position  I  have  assigned 
him.  The  English  Gracchus,  he  was  also  the  David 
in  the  forefront  of  the  opposing  Lancashire  array. 

I  now,  however,  pass  on  to  Mrs.  Harriet  Beecher 
Stowe  and  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin ;  and  here  again  the 
time  at  my  disposal  is  provokingly  insufficient  for  any 
proper  presentation  of  a  topic  singularly  dramatic  and 
altogether  instructive  :  to  those  of  the  present  genera 
tion,  novel  also.  For,  speaking  generally,  I  think  it 
may  not  unsafely  be  said  that  the  book  known  as 
Uncle  Tom's  Cabin ;  or  Life  among  the  Lowly,  published 
in  1852,  exercised,  largely  from  fortuitous  circum 
stances,  a  more  immediate,  considerable  and  dramatic 
world-influence  than  any  other  book  ever  printed. 

Superlatives  are  dangerous.  I  do  not  like  them  ; 
and  I  am  conscious  that  I  am  now  indulging  in  super 
latives.  Let  me,  therefore,  call  attention  to  the  limit 
ations  here  imposed.  Mrs.  Stowe's  book,  I  say,  ex 
ercised  a  more  immediate,  considerable  and  dramatic 
world-influence  than  any  other  book  ever  printed, 
I  do  not  say  that  the  influence  referred  to  was  more 
profound,  subtle,  lasting,  or  extensive.  I  do  not  think 
it  was,  even  confining  the  comparison  to  contempo 
raneous  publications.  For  instance,  Darwin's  Origin 
of  Species  appeared  (1859)  a  few  years  only  after  Uncle 
Tom's  Cabin  (1852) ;  and  it  has  unquestionably  exercised 
a  far  more  profound  and  lasting  influence :  but  that 


80    THE  CONFEDERATE  COTTON  CAMPAIGN 

influence  was  neither  so  dramatic,  nor  so  immediately 
considerable.  And  so  of  any  other  book  which  might 
be  named.  Upon  this  theme  I  now  propose  briefly 
to  dilate. 

In  literature  as  in  finance  and  business,  in  science 
and  mechanics,  everything  depends  upon  appropriate 
ness  of  time,  place  and  condition.  A  word,  like  an 
invention,  a  discovery,  or  a  person,  must  happen 
right.  Coming  at  any  other  period,  Peter  the  Her 
mit  would  have  been  a  cowled  crank,  crying  aloud 
from  church  steps  a  message  to  which  no  one  gave 
ear.  The  world  now  is,  as  it  always  has  been,  full 
of  such ;  but  of  them  all  Peter  alone  chanced  ex 
actly  right.  Rousseau  was  another  case  in  point. 
His  experience  resembled  more  closely  that  of 
Mrs.  Stowe;  but  the  Social  Contract  (1762)  preceded 
by  thirty  years  that  French  Revolution  it  voiced,  and 
which  it  so  potently  promoted.  La  Nouvelle  Heloise 
and  Emile  are,  I  fancy,  not  much  read  to-day,  even  in 
France ;  while  I  am  informed  that,  in  America  at  least, 
Uncle  Tom's  Cabin  is  still  one  of  the  books  in  greatest 
demand  at  the  counters  of  our  Public  Libraries.  And 
yet  as  a  work  of  fiction  I  do  not  suppose  that 
to-day  Mrs.  Stowe's  story  would  be  rated  high ;  it  was 
in  no  respect  a  literary  masterpiece.  Defective  in 
construction,  it  was  local  in  its  incident,  and,  in 
its  treatment,  crude.  No  i  Uncle  Tom '  ever  existed  ; 
and,  moreover,  had  he  existed,  there  would  have 
been  much  truth  in  an  observation  attributed  to 
Robert  Toombs  of  Georgia.  A  leading  Confederate 
notable — orator  and  politician — Mr.  Toombs,  while 


THE  CONFEDERATE  COTTON  CAMPAIGN    81 

wholly  denying  the  actual  incarnation  ever  of  any 
such  African  apostle  and  martyr  to  ideals  as  '  Uncle 
Tom ',  was  accustomed  to  asseverate  that,  if  such 
an  exemplar  of  the  higher  Christianity  had  existed 
indeed,  he  would  have  furnished  the  most  com 
plete  possible  vindication  of  American  African 
slavery.  What  other  industrial  system  or  social 
organization  could  point  to  a  fetich-worshipping 
Congo  savage  developed  in  three  generations  into  an 
altruistic  saint  ?  The  tree  is  known  by  its  fruits ! 
Nevertheless,  all  this  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding, 
it  so  chanced  that  '  Uncle  Tom '  hit  the  world,  so  to 
speak,  between  wind  and  water.  Composed  at  ex 
actly  the  right  time,  it  came  out  under  conditions 
which  made  possible  its  altogether  exceptional  vogue. 
And  in  this  connexion  it  is  necessary  to  remem 
ber  that  in  the  mid-Victorian  period  the  day  of  caste 
was  only  just  outlived ;  and,  so  far  as  human  servi 
tude  was  concerned — that  is,  property  in  man — the 
world  had  then  newly  reached  a  curiously  responsive 
stage.  This  was  so  not  only  in  America  but  through 
out  Europe.  Generally,  mankind  was  asserting,  or 
ready  to  assert,  man's  claim  for  recognition  as  Man. 
The  word  had  only  to  be  spoken ;  and  it  chanced  to 
Harriet  Beecher  Stowe  to  speak  it.  The  weak  spot  in 
the  system  then  prevailing,  and  which  had  prevailed 
from  the  beginning,  lay  in  African  servitude  in 
America.  Ethnological  principles  were  not  under 
stood  in  1850  as  they  now  are ;  those  principles  had 
in  fact  not  yet  been  reduced  to  a  scientific  basis. 
While  Darwin  had  not  spoken,  Mr.  Disraeli  oratoric- 


82    THE  CONFEDERATE  COTTON  CAMPAIGN 

ally  arrayed  himself  l  on  the  side  of  the  angels '. 
Nevertheless,  conditions  were  ripe,  and  circumstances 
combined.  So,  to  the  utter  amazement  of  Mrs.  Stowe, 
her  book  on  its  appearance  was  as  a  live  ember 
dropped  in  a  field  of  dry  stubble —almost  as  a  torch 
flung  into  a  magazine  of  combustibles.  Like  the  rising 
of  mighty  winds,  like  the  rushing  of  many  waters, 
almost  immediately  following  the  publication  of  the 
story  there  came  up  from  the  earth  a  tumult  of  human 
voices,  expressing  themselves  in  every  known  tongue. 
Above  all  was  the  note  of  sympathetic  weeping,  and 
the  cry  of  those  who  said,  '  Can  nothing  be  done  to 
banish  this  accursed  thing  from  off  the  face  of  the 
earth?'  Not  only  was  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin  universally 
read,  having  been  translated,  it  is  said,  into  over  twenty 
foreign  languages  and  sold  by  the  million,  but  even 
in  those  parts  of  it  which  challenged  question  and 
inquiry  it  was  taken  so  seriously  and  so  accepted  as 
truth  as  to  become  a  great  political  and  moral  force 
throughout  the  world  of  thought  and  sentiment. 
A  sermon  against  a  great  moral  evil,  it  was  altogether 
a  homiletic  exception,  for  it  was  a  sermon  every  one 
read.  It  was  again  curiously  suggestive  that  after  the 
English  sale  of  the  book  had  run  to  over  a  hundred 
thousand  copies  a  reaction  set  in ;  and  that  reaction 
was  led  off  by  the  London  Times.  Yet,  when  a  year 
or  two  later  Mrs.  Stowe  landed  in  Liverpool  from  the 
steamer,  she  noticed  a  great  throng  gathered  for  some 
reason  on  the  dock.  Was  it  always  so  on  the  arrival 
of  an  American  packet?  It  did  not  occur  to  that 
particular  Yankee  l  school-marm '  that  the  pier  was 


THE  CONFEDERATE  COTTON  CAMPAIGN    83 

thronged  with  the  plain  people,  eager  to  see  her  and 
touch  her  raiment.  It  had  never  dawned  upon  her 
that  she  was  a  person  of  importance ;  and  yet  on  the 
occasion  of  her  going  out  sight-seeing  at  Edinburgh 
a  few  days  later,  she  wrote :  '  As  I  saw  the  way  to 
the  cathedral  blocked  up  by  a  throng  of  people  that 
had  come  out  to  see  me,  I  could  not  help  saying, 
"  What  went  ye  out  for  to  see  :  a  reed  shaken  with 
the  wind?"  As  she  drove  through  Scotland  the 
butcher  came  out  of  his  stall,  the  baker  from  his  shop 
to  welcome  her ;  the  miller  dusty  with  flour,  the  bloom 
ing  comely  young  mother  with  her  baby  in  her  arms, 
bore  witness,  all  smiling  and  bowing,  with  that 
hearty,  intelligent,  friendly  look  as  if  they  knew  the 
American  authoress  would  be  glad  to  see  them,  plain 
people  though  they  also  were.  When  they  instinc 
tively  greeted  her  as  their  friend,  it  was  the  chord  of 
universal  and  human  tenderness  she  had  struck  so 
opportunely  in  her  book  that  was  ringing  in  their 
hearts.  Then  came  the  royal  reception  given  her  by 
the  Duke  and  Duchess  of  Sutherland  at  Stafford 
House,  where  Lord  Shaftesbury  presented  her  on  be 
half  of  the  women  of  England  generally  an  address  of 
welcome  and  appreciation.  It  was  the  same  every 
where  on  the  Continent — in  France,  in  Switzerland, 
in  Norway ;  and  when  her  subsequent  book  Dred 
appeared,  so  inferior  in  character  and  interest  that  it 
is  now  forgotten,  one  hundred  thousand  copies  were 
sold  in  four  weeks.  It  is,  however,  unnecessary  to 
enter  into  further  detail.  As  I  have  already  said,  it 
would  certainly  be  very  difficult,  I  think  it  would  be 


84    THE  CONFEDERATE  COTTON  CAMPAIGN 

impossible,  to  name  any  book  ever  published  which  led 
so  immediately  to  such  momentous  consequences. 

The  opposing  forces  arrayed  in  Lancashire  in  1862 
were,  therefore,  not  so  altogether  unevenly  matched  as 
would  have  been  supposed.  For  John  Bright,  the 
Tribune  of  British  Democracy,  represented  and  gave 
voice  to  a  great  moral  movement  aroused  to  white 
heat  by  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe  ten  years  before,  and 
then  moving  onward  with  a  world-momentum  ever 
increasing. 

To  put  it  another  way,  so  far  as  the  formidable 
combination  of  interests  advocating  the  cause  of  the 
Confederacy  was  concerned,  the  situation  was  sugges 
tive  of  Browning's  lines  in  his  short  and  familiar  lyric 
Instans  Tyrannus : 

Do  you  see  ?     Just  my  vengeance  complete, 
The  man  sprang  to  his  feet, 
Stood  erect,  caught  at  God's  skirts,  and  prayed ! 
—  So,  7  was  afraid  ! 


Ill 

DIS   ALITER   VISUM 


Ill 

DIS   ALITER  VISUM 

MY  last  lecture  came  to  a  somewhat  abrupt  close. 
In  it  I  had  described  the  opposing1  arrays  on  the 
Lancashire  field  of  conflict  in  1862 — that  field  selected 
by  the  leaders  of  the  Confederacy.  Staking  their  all 
on  the  issue  there  joined,  they  challenged  a  trial  of 
strength.  Cotton  they  had  proclaimed  King ;  and 
they  were  now  prepared  to  demonstrate  its  world- 
sovereignty.  Their  confidence  in  the  outcome  was 
unquestioning  ;  and  of  the  opposing  arrays  theirs  in 
every  way  distinctly  preponderated. 

In  that  terrible  summer  of  1862,  the  situation  here 
as  well  as  in  America  was  in  the  highest  degree 
dramatic ;  and,  while  with  us  the  contending  armies 
swayed  to  and  fro  in  life-and-death  grapple,  what 
proved  in  the  end  the  controlling  decision  was  reached 
in  England.  But  before  a  decision  was  reached, 
cotton  unmistakably  asserted  its  power.  And  that 
assertion  of  power,  its  intensity  and  the  outcome  of 
the  effort  put  forth,  is  my  theme  to-day. 

While  well  aware  that  the  conditions  then  existing 
are  now  largely  forgotten,  I  have  neither  time  to  enter 
into  details,  nor  to  attempt  to  recount,  however 
briefly,  a  twice-told  tale.  I  must  assume  a  degree  of 
general  information.  Suffice  it  then  to  say  that, 
through  the  ingenuity  of  two  Englishmen  and  one 


88  DIS  ALITER  VISUM 

American  —  Richard  Arkwright,  James  Hargreaves, 
and  Eli  Whitney,  the  earliest  of  their  inventions 
dating  from  about  1760 — the  weaving  of  cotton  into 
cloth  had  a  century  later  become  one  of  the  leading 
and  most  vital  industries  of  the  world;  and,  for 
reasons  a  knowledge  of  which  must  again  be  assumed, 
the  States  included  in  the  Southern  Confederacy 
enjoyed  what  they  were  fully  convinced  was  an 
unshakable  monopoly  in  the  production  of  the  indis 
pensable  staple.  It  was  theirs  through  soil,  climate, 
and  an  industrial  system  believed  to  be  essential  to  its 
successful  production.  The  complete  dependence  of 
this  great  and  still  rapidly  expanding  interest  on  one 
source  for  its  supply  of  raw  material  had  to  the  more 
far-sighted  Englishmen  long  been  occasion  for  solici 
tude ;  and,  as  early  as  1847,  John  Bright  had  pro 
phesied  that  an  American  industrial  disturbance 
because  of  African  slavery  would  some  day  seriously 
interfere  with  Lancashire's  supply  of  raw  material. 
As  usual,  no  heed  was  given  to  the  voice  of  warning ; 
now,  the  contingency  presented  itself. 

The  American  crop  of  1860  had  been  the  largest 
then  recorded,  aggregating  nearly  4,000,000  bales. 
It  had  gone  forward  in  the  regular  way,  and,  affording 
employment  to  a  vast  fleet  of  carriers,  it  fed  innumer 
able  looms.  The  foreign  shipments — some  3.500,000 
bales — were  practically  complete  when  in  April,  1861, 
a  blockade  of  the  Confederate  coast  was  suddenly 
declared  by  the  Washington  Government,  following 
hard  on  the  outbreak  of  active  hostilities  heralded  by 
the  bombardment  and  fall  of  Fort  Sumter.  A  year 


DIS  ALITEE  VISUM  89 

later  the  supply  of  unmanufactured  cotton  in  European 
ports  was  running  ominously  low ;  though  the  Con 
federate  leaders  loudly  insisted  upon  it  that  the 
blockade  was  a  mere  paper  fulmination,  and  that,  so 
far  as  Confederate  ports  were  concerned,  both  ingress 
and  egress  were  practically  unobstructed.  The  cotton 
shipment,  they  claimed,  was  withheld,  to  establish 
once  for  all  Cotton  World-mastery.  In  point  of  fact, 
while  in  May,  1861,  the  European  supply  of  the  staple 
was  estimated  at  nearly  1,500,000  bales,  during  the 
same  month  a  year  later  it  had  become  reduced  to 
a  third  of  that  amount.  Liverpool  then  was,  as  it  now 
is,  the  great  cotton  market  of  the  world ;  and  in 
Liverpool  the  stock  had  shrunk  from  close  upon 
1,000,000  to  a  little  more  than  360,000  bales ;  while 
the  price  per  pound  had  risen  from  sevenpence  to 
thirteen  pence.  The  effect  of  the  stoppage,  to  what 
ever  cause  due,  was  thus  read  in  the  market  quota 
tions  ;  for,  during  the  previous  six  months  the 
quantity  of  cotton  received  from  America  had  been 
hardly  more  than  nominal — a  mere  11,500  bales- 
while  in  the  corresponding  months  of  the  previous 
year  it  had  been  1,500,000  bales.  In  other  words, 
the  shipments  for  the  half  year  ending  in  May,  1862, 
were  less  than  one  per  cent,  of  the  shipments  during 
the  same  period  of  the  previous  year.  The  arm  of 
industry  was  paralysed ;  and,  throughout  Lancashire, 
the  distress  already  indisputably  great  was  obviously 
increasing.  One  half  of  the  spindles  were  idle ; 
and,  in  the  towns  of  Blackburn  and  Preston  alone, 
over  20,000  persons  were  dependent  on  parochial 

1593  M 


90  DIS  ALITER  VISUM 

aid.  The  newspapers  teemed  with  pitiable  cases  of 
individual  destitution ;  and  the  local  strain  on  the 
poor  laws  was  so  severe  that  Parliament  considered 
their  modification.  Meanwhile  the  period  of  six 
months,  originally  assigned  by  the  Confederate  eco 
nomic  authorities  as  the  extreme  limit  of  European 
endurance,  was  long  exceeded.  The  pressure  was 
great ;  the  consequent  suffering  manifest.  A  further 
application  of  the  screws  would  surely  produce  the 
desired  effect.  And,  during  the  following  months,  the 
situation  in  the  manufacturing  districts  under  that 
freshly  applied  pressure  grew  rapidly  worse,  became 
in  fact  wellnigh  unendurable.  The  looms  which 
a  year  before  had  consumed  on  an  average  40,000 
bales  of  American  cotton  a  week,  now  might  count 
on  receiving  perhaps  4,000.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  unprecedented  price  could  not  at  once  bring 
into  the  market  anything  even  approaching  an  ade 
quate  supply  from  other  countries.  The  receipts 
from  Asiatic  sources  rose,  for  instance,  from  174,000 
bales  in  1860  to  nearly  700,000  in  1862  and  close 
upon  900,000  a  year  later :  but  the  staple  was  of 
inferior  quality,  and  the  Asiatic  bale  weighed  materi 
ally  less  [10  per  cent.]  than  the  American.  The  real 
trouble,  however,  lay  in  the  fact  that  the  East  India 
cotton  as  ,a  manufacturing  staple  was  at  best  a  most 
unsatisfactory  substitute  for  the  American.  Destruc 
tive  to  the  machinery,  it  was  hardly  less  hurtful  to  the 
hands  and  patience  of  the  operative ;  and,  while  the 
spinners  had  been  forced  to  buy  the  East  India  product, 
and  adapt  their  machinery  to  it,  yet  the  very  first 


DIS  ALITER  VISUM  91 

opportunity  was  seized  to  remit  it  again  to  the  back 
ground.  Experience  confirmed  prejudice,  showing 
unmistakably  that,  unless  the  Indian  staple  were 
greatly  improved,  the  demand  for  '  Surats ',  as  it  was 
denominated,  would  again  fall  to  its  former  low 
estate. 

And  of  this  wholly  artificial  state  of  affairs  the 
market  quotations  afforded  convincing  evidence.  In 
May,  1862,  American  cotton  ruled  in  Liverpool  at 
thirteen  pence  per  pound.  It  continued  at  about  that 
price  until  July,  when  it  rose  to  seventeen  pence  ;  and 
thence,  in  August,  it  crept  on  first  to  twenty  pence, 
and  afterwards  by  speculative  leaps  and  bounds  it 
went  up  and  up  until  at  last,  on  September  3,  it  was 
quoted  at  half  a  crown  a  pound.  Under  modern  con 
ditions,  such  figures  were  unheard  of :  but,  a  little  later 
in  the  month  even  these  figures  were  exceeded.  The 
price  of  thirty-one  pence  a  pound  was  recorded. 

Cotton  had  thus  become  a  speculative  commodity. 
Too  costly  to  manufacture  into  cloth  at  prices  then 
ruling,  and  rapidly  enhancing  in  value,  it  was,  when 
not  sold  for  export,  held  for  yet  further  advance.1 
So  by  the  end  of  September,  out  of  80,000  operatives 
in  five  localities  in  Lancashire  only  14,000  were 
working  full  time,  while  the  remaining  66,000  were 
about  equally  divided  between  those  working  on 
short  time  and  those  wholly  idle.  In  twenty -four 
unions,  156,000  persons  were  represented  as  receiv 
ing  poor  relief;  and  yet  the  number  was  increasing 
at  the  rate  of  1,000  per  day.  This  was  very  bad; 
1  See  Note  1,  p.  122. 


92  DIS  ALITER  VISUM 

but,  before  the  end  of  October,  conditions  were  appre 
ciably  worse.  In  the  same  number  of  unions,  176,000 
persons  were  receiving  relief.  In  six  succeeding 
weeks  35,000  persons  had  become  paupers,  while  the 
wholly  unemployed  exceeded  those  working  on  full 
time  by  nearly  two  to  one.  An  ex-Premier,  the 
Earl  of  Derby,  now  speaking  as  Chairman  of  the 
Executive  Committee  of  the  General  Relief  Asso 
ciation,  made  the  statement  that  at  one  period  over 
430,000  persons  out  of  two  millions,  or  nearly  22 
per  cent,  of  the  whole  population,  were  dependent 
'  for  their  daily  existence  either  upon  parochial  relief 
or  public  charity5.  The  loss  of  wages  for  each 
working  day  was  at  the  same  time  stated  by  Mr. 
Cobden  to  be  in  excess  of  £22,000. 

Under  such  circumstances,  the  local  resources, 
municipal  and  voluntary,  were  exhausted  or  manifestly 
inadequate  for  the  work  of  necessary  relief,  and 
a  call  for  aid  went  forth.  Into  the  results  of  that  call 
I  have  not  time  to  enter.  Suffice  it  to  say  all  classes 
and  the  whole  world  responded.  This,  your  University 
of  Oxford,  for  instance,  contributed  £4,000  from  its 
corporate  funds.  As  the  authoress  of  Mary  Barton, 
not  unfamiliar  with  previous  periods  of  distress  in  the 
manufacturing  districts,  at  the  time  expressed  it,  the 
supreme  torture  now  applied  was  the  one  absorbing 
topic,  l  literally  haunting  us  in  our  sleep,  as  well  as 
being  the  first  thoughts  in  waking  and  the  last  at 
night.'  Within  thirteen  months  private  charity  pro 
vided  nearly  two  millions  sterling  for  the  relief  of 
distress  ;  but  the  loss  of  wages  during  the  same  period 


DIS  ALITER  VISUM  93 

was  computed  by  Mr.  Gladstone  as  being  in  excess  of 
£8,000,000. 

The  extraordinary  fact  in  the  situation  was,  how 
ever,  the  patience  of  the  victims  ;  and  the  official  organ 
of  the  Confederacy  published  in  London,  the  Index 
newspaper,  noted  with  surprise  and  unconcealed  dis 
may  the  absence  of  political  demonstrations  to  urge 
upon  what  it  termed  l  a  neglectful  Government '  its 
duty  towards  its  '  suffering  subjects '. 

A  distinctly  audible  whine  was  perceptible  in  its 
utterances.  One  of  them  ran  thus, — i  It  is  the  great 
peculiarity  of  England  that  the  heart  of  the  country 
is  thoroughly  religious  ; '  and,  speaking  editorially,  the 
writer  then  went  on  to  assert  that  the  prominence 
given  to  the  slave  question  by  American  writers  and 
preachers  was  hypocritical,  and  intended  especially 
for  the  religious  public  in  England.  l  And  well  had  it 
answered  its  purpose.  To  this  very  hour  the  great 
mass  of  the  people  have  no  other  terms  to  express  the 
nature  of  the  conflict.  It  is  to  no  purpose  that  argu 
ment,  fact,  and  experience  have  shown  the  utter 
indifference  of  the  North  to  the  welfare  of  the  negro ; 
the  complete  appreciation  by  the  slaves  themselves  of 
the  sham  friendship  offered  them. . .  .  The  emancipation 
of  the  negro  from  the  slavery  of  Mrs.  Beecher  Stowe's 
heroes  is  the  one  idea  of  the  millions  of  British  who 
know  no  better,  and  do  not  care  to  know.'  The  funda 
mental  sin  of  the  Confederacy  had  in  truth  found  it 
out.  Literally,  the  curse  of  the  bondsman  was  on  it ; 
and  perhaps  never  has  there  been  witnessed  in  the 
history  of  mankind  a  more  creditable  exhibition  of 


94  DIS  ALITER  VISUM 

human  sympathy,  and  what  is  known  as  altruism, 
than  that  then  in  Lancashire  enacted.  The  common 
folk  of  a  great  English  district,  Abraham  Lincoln's 
'  plain  people ',  workless,  cold  and  hungry,  felt,  what 
the  wealthier  class  refused  to  believe,  that  the  cause 
at  issue  in  America  was  the  right  of  a  working-man  to 
his  own  share  in  the  results  of  his  toil,  to  the  bread 
earned  by  the  sweat  of  his  brow.  That  cause,  they 
instinctively  knew,  was  somehow  their  cause  ;  and 
they  would  not  betray  it.  So,  no  organized  cry  went 
up  from  suffering  Lancashire  to  break  the  blockade 
which,  while  it  shut  up  Cotton,  was  throttling  Slavery. 
Touching  evidence  on  this  head,  not  without  its  comic 
features,  was  from  time  to  time  afforded.  For  in 
stance,  at  the  most  intense  period  of  distress,  when 
the  cotton-workers  in  Rochdale  were  starving  in 
enforced  idleness,  a  meeting  was  called  in  the  town 
by  a  Liverpool  association  of  Southern  sympathizers, 
formed  to  promote  the  breaking  of  the  blockade.  The 
lecturer  delivered  his  address ;  and  those  composing 
the  meeting  then  passed  a  resolution  censuring  him 
for  endeavouring  to  mislead  them  ! 

The  situation  was  suggestive  of  a  closely  beleaguered 
city — some  modern  Haarlem — representative  of  a 
common  cause,  one  in  which  the  entire  community 
was  heart  and  soul  enlisted.  This,  one  incident  signally 
illustrated.  When  the  Lancashire  distress  was  most 
pronounced,  news  came  there  that  sympathizers  in 
the  loyal  portion  of  the  American  Union,  though 
having  at  that  juncture  heavy  burdens  of  their  own 
to  bear,  yet  felt  moved  to  contribute  to  the  relief  of 


DIS  ALITEE  VISUM  95 

a  foreign  pressure.  A  subscription,  originating  with 
a  sympathetic  merchant  of  New  York,  had  been  filled 
up  by  many  contributors,  and  a  ship  named  after  him, 
the  George  Griswold,  had  been  freighted  with  food  for 
the  relief  of  suffering  Lancashire.  When  the  George 
Griswold  arrived  in  Liverpool,  the  Custom  House 
officials  had  learned  from  the  Government  that  they 
had  no  duties  to  perform  on  board ;  the  Liverpool 
authorities  declined  to  receive  dock  or  town  dues  ; 
and  everybody  engaged,  down  to  the  dock  porters  and 
landing  waiters,  alike  refused  to  be  paid  for  their 
services.  In  this  the  railway  companies  joined,  carry 
ing  the  cargo  free  of  cost ;  while  the  captain  of  the 
ship  was  made  the  guest  of  the  Corporation  of  Liver 
pool.  In  New  York,  stevedores,  tug-boats,  pilots, 
shipping-masters,  all  contributed  their  services.  On 
his  arrival  at  Liverpool  the  captain  declared  he  found 
the  steam  companies  *  vying  with  each  other  to  tow 
my  ship  to  port  free  of  charge '. 

Thus  it  was  as  if  in  time  of  war  a  convoy  bringing 
relief  had  been  thrown  into  a  sorely  pressed  and  starv 
ing  town.  The  manifestations  of  gratitude  could  not 
have  been  more  pronounced. 

Under  such  circumstances,  Eichard  Cobden  was 
justified  in  declaring  that  the  case  was  totally  excep 
tional.  '  The  state  of  affairs',  he  said,  l  has  no  parallel 
in  all  history.  It  is  impossible  you  could  point  out  to  me 
another  case  in  which,  in  a  limited  sphere,  such  as  we 
have  in  Lancashire,  and  in  the  course  of  a  few  months, 
there  has  been  a  cessation  of  employment  at  the  rate 
of  £7,000,000  sterling  per  annum  in  wages.  There 


96  DIS  ALITER  VISUM 

has  been  nothing  like  it  in  the  history  of  the  world 
for  its  suddenness,  for  the  impossibility  of  dealing  with 
it,  or  managing  it  in  the  way  of  an  effective  remedy.' 

Not  until  the  close  of  1862  did  the  distress  show 
signs  of  abatement ;  then,  slowly,  natural  causes 
brought  about  a  gradual  measure  of  relief.  In  early 
December  of  that  year  the  maximum  pressure  upon 
the  relief  committees  was  reached.  The  returns  for 
the  last  week  of  December  showed  485,434  persons  in 
receipt  of  aid.  The  public  waited  with  eager  anxiety 
and  with  trembling  hope  for  the  January  return,  and 
when  that  showed  only  451,343  recipients,  the  re 
joicing  was  mingled  with  fear  lest  some  mistake 
should  have  crept  into  the  figures.  The  news  was 
thought  too  good  to  be  true ;  for  there  was  no  visible 
circumstance  to  account  for  the  change.  Neverthe 
less,  the  February  report  showed  a  yet  farther  de 
crease  of  about  19,000  dependents.  The  rejoicing 
now  became  earnest.  It  was  as  if  a  pestilence  was 
abating,  and  men  shook  hands  heartily  with  each  other. 
Instead  of  the  usual  empty  references  to  the  weather, 
mutual  congratulations  were  in  order  to  the  effect  that 
1  the  worst  was  past5.  Though  6,000  persons  had  been 
reduced  from  full  to  short  time  since  January,  the 
March  return  showed  a  further  decrease  of  some 
12,000  recipients.  April  indicated  a  further  and 
larger  decrease  of  some  58,000;  and  when  June 
came,  the  portentous  aggregate  of  those  receiving 
relief  had  fallen  to  256,000.  At  the  end  of  1863  it 
was  180,000.  By  that  time,  though  still  great,  the 
crisis  had  ceased  to  be  acute. 


DIS  ALITER  VISUM  97 

Things  had  adjusted  themselves^/ptaking  his  whole 
foreign  policy  upon  a  single  issue,  on  that  issue  the 
Slave-holder  had  lost.  >Yet  his  failure  was  due  to  no 
sudden  contingencies  lying  beyond  the  ken  of  human 
prevision ;  it  was,  on  the  contrary,  a  complete  case 
of  miscalculating  over-confidence — unquestioning  reli 
ance  on  a  means  inadequate  to  the  attainment  of  the 
end  proposed.  Pressure  had  been  mercilessly  applied 
to  the  full  extent  possible,  every  condition  contributing 
to  its  severity.  The  Confederacy  had  meanwhile  held 
its  enemy  at  arm's  length  during  five  times  the  period 
every  Southern  authority  had  fixed  upon  as  ample  in 
which  to  establish  King  Cotton's  supremacy.  Nothing 
sufficed.  The  alleged  dynasty  was  fairly  and  com 
pletely  dethroned.  The  bondsman  and  the  growing 
spirit  of  nineteenth  century  self-sacrifice  had  not  been 
sufficiently  taken  into  account.  Conscience  had  carried 
it  over  Cotton  ;  in  the  jargon  of  the  prize  ring  Uncle 
Tom  had  '  bested '  Simon  Legree.2 

It  was,  however,  during  the  latter  half  of  1862 — 
those  months  during  which,  as  has  just  been  seen,  the 
weekly  returns  of  the  dependent  poonjii  Lancashire 
were  watched  as  the  bills  of  mortality  iii  a  time  of 
plague — it  was  during  this  period  when  cotton  touched 
thirty  pence  a  pound,  that  the  governmental  crisis 
presented  itself.N  Whether  in  the  American  histories 
of  our  Civil  War,  or  in  the  British  lives  of  individuals 
or  general  narratives,  the  story  of  what  then  occurred 
has  never  received  adequate  treatment.  Passing  it 
over  in  a  way  to  the  last  degree  superficial,  the 
2  See  note  2,  p.  124. 

1B93  N 


98  DIS  ALITER  VISUM 

American  authorities  have  devoted  much  time  and 
almost  unlimited  space  to  an  account  of  indecisive 
military  operations  and  drawn  battles  badly  fought, 
utterly  ignoring  the  conflict  on  the  issue  of  which  the 
struggle  at  the  stage  it  had  then  reached  virtually 
depended.  The  English  writers,  on  the  other  hand,  in 
a  somewhat  indifferent  spirit,  allow  a  paragraph  per 
haps  for  a  perfunctory  reference  to  what  was  in  reality 
for  Great  Britain's  largest  textile  industry  nothing  less 
than  a  war  of  emancipation.  I  propose  to-day  to  fill 
the  historic  void,  explaining  events  which  in  the 
sequence  led  to  results  which  are  now  much  in 
evidence  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic ;  though 
possibly  not  exactly  in  the  shape  assumed  in  the 
outpourings  of  General  Bernhardi's  '  Germanic 
heart '. 

In  October,  1862,  the  Queen,  widowed  only  eight 
months  before,  had  gone  over  to  Germany,  and  was 
for  a  time  at  Gotha.  Earl  Russell,  the  Foreign  Secre 
tary,  was  in  attendance  upon  her.  The  crisis  in 
American  affairs  so  far  as  European  intervention  was 
concerned  now  came  to  a  head. 

Military  operations  in  America  had  from  the  Union 
point  of  view  then  for  some  time  been  going  steadily 
from  bad  to  worse.  The  Confederacy  was,  on  the 
field  of  battle,  distinctly  getting  the  best  of  it.  So 
now,  referring  to  the  outcome  of  the  so-called  i  Pope ', 
or  second  Bull  Run  campaign,  carried  on  almost 
within  sight  of  Washington  in  August,  1862 — those 
operations  in  the  course  of  which  Lee  and  '  Stonewall ' 
Jackson  so  distinguished  themselves — Lord  Palmer- 


DIS  ALITER  VISUM  99 

ston,  then  Premier,  wrote  (September  14th)  to  Earl 
Russell  at  Gotha,  suggesting  that  the  time  was  now 
come  '  for  us  to  consider  whether,  in  such  a  state  of 
things,  England  and  France  might  not  address  the 
contending  parties  and  recommend  an  arrangement 
upon  the  basis  of  separation '.  This  suggestion 
strongly  commended  itself  to  the  Foreign  Secretary, 
who  immediately  replied  (September  17th)  that  he 
was  decidedly  of  the  same  mind  as  the  Premier :  '  I 
agree  with  you  that  the  time  is  come  for  offering 
mediation  to  the  United  States  Government,  with 
a  view  to  the  recognition  of  the  independence  of  the 
Confederates.  I  agree  further  that,  in  case  of  failure,  we 
ought  ourselves  to  recognize  the  Southern  States  as  an 
independent  State.  For  the  purpose  of  taking  so  im 
portant  a  step,  I  think  we  must  have  a  meeting  of  the 
Cabinet.  The  23rd  or  20th  [October]  would  suit  me 
for  the  meeting.'  To  this  very  emphatic  acquiescence 
in  his  views  Lord  Palmerston,  six  days  later,  on  the 
23rd  September,  wrote  back :  '  Your  plan  of  pro 
ceedings  .  .  .  seems  to  be  excellent.  ...  As  to  the 
time  of  making  the  offer  [of  mediation],  if  France  and 
Russia  agree — and  France,  we  know,  is  quite  ready 
and  only  waiting  for  our  concurrence — events  may  be 
taking  place  which  might  render  it  desirable  that  the 
offer  should  be  made  before  the  middle  of  October.5 

The  course  of  concurrent  events  here  referred  to 
can  be  briefly  outlined.  As  I  have  just  said,  through 
out  the  months  of  July  and  August,  1862,  the  cause  of 
the  Union,  east  and  west,  had  sustained  a  series, 
almost  unbroken,  of  reverses.  The  Confederacy  had 


100  DIS  ALITEE  VISUM 

not  only  made  good  its  right  to  be  recognized  as 
a  belligerent,  but  it  was  a  victorious  belligerent.  Not 
a  single  armed  Union  soldier  remained  in  Virginia 
outside  of  the  defences  of  Washington ;  the  war  had 
been  carried  across  the  Potomac  into  Maryland ;  the 
national  capital  itself  stood  apparently  in  imminent 
danger  of  capture.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Mexican 
expedition  of  the  French  emperor  having  overrun  that 
country,  Napoleon  III  was  urging  upon  the  British 
Cabinet  an  aggressive  attitude  towards  the  United 
States ;  an  attitude  which  would  inevitably  have 
proved  the  first  step  toward  a  direct  armed  interven 
tion.  The  breaking  of  the  blockade  and  a  renewal  of 
cotton  shipments  would  have  followed.  ^Meanwhile 
the  situation  in  Lancashire  seemed  fast  getting  beyond 
control.  If  in  New  York  gold  stood  at  a  premium  of 
50,  cotton  in  Liverpool  stood  at  one  of  200;/  The 
looms,  French  as  well  as  English,  were  idle,  and 
a  long  and  sustained  wail,  a  wail  of  pitiable  agony, 
went  up  from  crowded  districts.  Whether  the  fact 
was  then  realized  in  America  or  not,  or  has  since 
been  recognized  by  the  historian,  the  hour  of  crisis 
was  at  hand ;  and  the  issue  was  to  be  settled  not  on 
the  banks  of  the  Potomac,  as  generally  assumed,  but 
in  Downing  Street,  London.x> 

The  Foreign  Secretary  at  this  juncture  left  Gotha, 
returning  to  England  and  his  office,  where  the  next 
two  weeks  were  utilized  by  him  in  the  preparation  of 
an  elaborate,  though  confidential,  Cabinet  circular  in 
direct  furtherance  of  the  mediation  programme.  In 
this  circular  the  question  was  plainly  put  to  those 


DIS  ALITER  VISUM  101 

composing  the  Cabinet,  whether  in  the  light  of  what 
had  taken  place  in  America  and  the  condition  of 
distress  prevailing  throughout  the  manufacturing  dis 
tricts  of  England  and  France,  it  was  not  the  duty  of 
Europe  *  to  ask  both  parties,  in  the  most  friendly  and 
conciliatory  terms,  to  agree  to  a  suspension  of  arms 
for  the  purpose  of  weighing  calmly  the  advantages  of 
peace' — and  so  forth  and  so  on,  in  the  somewhat 
unctuous  phraseology  usual  with  philanthropic  but 
interested  neutrals  in  times  of  war-generated  stress. 

Next  to  the  Premier,  Lord  Palmerston,  and  the 
Foreign  Secretary,  Earl  Russell,  Mr.  Gladstone,  the 
Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  was  the  most  influential 
member  of  the  Cabinet.  Consulted  as  to  the  proposed 
programme,  he  now  gave  to  it  his  emphatic  approval. 
It  entirely  coincided  with  the  views  he  at  that  time 
entertained,  nor  had  hesitated  to  express.  The  cry  of 
agony  coming  up  from  the  cotton-spinning  districts 
appealed  to  his  strong  humanitarian  sympathies ;  he, 
like  Lord  Palmerston,  was  fully  convinced  that  a  re- 
establishment  of  the  Union  was  impossible  as  well  as 
undesirable  ;  finally,  by  that  subtle  process  of  reason 
ing  always  characteristic  of  him,  Mr.  Gladstone  had 
persuaded  himself  that  the  victory  of  the  slave-owner 
would  ultimately  but  surely  result  in  the  downfall  of 
slavery.  He  in  fact  saw,  or  thought  he  saw,  into  the 
millstone  future  a  little  too  far.  It  proved  in  the. 
result  not  to  be  so  transparent  as  he  confidently  be 
lieved  it  to  be. 

The  concurrence  of  Mr.  Gladstone  in  the  proposed 
programme  rendered  assurance  doubly  sure ;  for,  as 


102  DIS  ALITER  VISUM 

Lord  Granville  had  a  few  months  before,  and  in  an 
other  connexion,  written  to  Lord  Canning,  'He  [Glad 
stone],  Johnny  [Eussell],  and  Pam  [Palmerston]  are 
a  formidable  phalanx  when  they  are  united  in  opposi 
tion  to  the  whole  Cabinet  in  foreign  matters.'  Not  only 
was  this  so,  but  in  the  present  case  a  large  majority 
of  the  Cabinet  were  with  '  the  formidable  phalanx '. 

Now  it  was  that  the  wholly  unforeseeable,  the 
strangely  unexpected,  occurred.  The  meeting  of  the 
Cabinet  was  fixed  for  the  23rd  of  October.  Mr.  Adams, 
the  American  Minister  to  Great  Britain,  got  an  inkling 
of  what  was  on  foot.  He  was  sorely  disturbed. 
4  For  a  fortnight ',  he  wrote,  '  my  mind  has  been  run 
ning  so  strongly  on  all  this  night  and  day  that  it  seems 
almost  to  threaten  my  life.'  For  his  anxiety,  however 
extreme,  he  had  grounds.  The  tension  was  becoming 
strained  to  the  extent  that  something,  it  would  seem, 
must  break ;  and  that  soon.  For,  weeks  previously, 
apprehending  just  such  an  emergency  as  was  now  im 
pending,  Mr.  Adams  had  written  home  asking  for  speci 
fic  instructions  for  his  guidance  if  what  he  apprehended 
should  speedily  occur.  Those  instructions  he  had  in 
due  time  received  from  Secretary  Seward  ;  they  were 
explicit.  To  make  the  narrative  intelligible,  and  fully 
set  forth  the  extreme  character  of  the  crisis  then  im 
pending,  these  instructions  should  be  read  ;  but,  though 
not  long,  I  have  not  time  here  and  now  to  read  them 
in  full.  Suffice  it  to  say  that,  carrying  the  standard  en 
trusted  to  him  high  and  with  a  firm  hand,  the  Ameri 
can  Secretary  then  in  that  hour  of  darkness,  defeat 
and  discouragement  bore  himself  in  a  way  of  which 


DIS  ALITER  VISUM  103 

his  country  had  cause  to  be  proud.     The  paper  read 
in  part  as  follows  :— 

If,  contrary  to  our  expectations,  the  British  Government, 
either  alone  or  in  combination  with  any  other  Government, 
should  acknowledge  the  insurgents,  while  you  are  remaining 
without  further  instructions  from  this  Government  concerning 
that  event,  you  will  immediately  suspend  the  exercise  of  your 
functions.  ...  I  have  now  in  behalf  of  the  United  States, 
and  by  the  authority  of  their  chief  executive  magistrate, 
performed  an  important  duty.  Its  possible  consequences  have 
been  weighed,  and  its  solemnity  is  therefore  felt  and  freely 
acknowledged.  This  duty  has  brought  us  to  meet  and  con 
front  the  danger  of  a  war  with  Great  Britain  and  other  States 
allied  with  the  insurgents  who  are  in  arms  for  the  overthrow 
of  the  American  Union.  You  will  perceive  that  we  have 
approached  the  contemplation  of  that  crisis  with  the  caution 
which  great  reluctance  has  inspired.  But  I  trust  that  you 
will  also  have  perceived  that  the  crisis  has  not  appalled  us. 

It  was  with  these  ringing  instructions  before  him 
that  Mr.  Adams,  with  such  fortitude  as  he  could  com 
mand,  now  awaited  the  outcome  he  was  powerless  in 
any  material  way  to  affect.  The  special  Cabinet  meet 
ing  was  called  for  the  23rd  of  October ;  to  all  outward 
appearance  and  in  all  human  probability  that  was  the 
fateful  day  ;  the  ordeal  must  then  be  faced.  The  order 
of  exercises  was  arranged. 

The  day  came ;  and  passed.  Upon  it  nothing  hap 
pened.  The  wholly  unexpected  had  again  occurred. 

What  had  taken  place?  Why  was  the  carefully 
prepared  programme,  so  far-reaching,  so  world-momen 
tous,  suddenly,  quietly,  postponed — ostensibly  aban 
doned  ?  It  is  a  curious  story ;  in  diplomatic  annals 
scarce  any  more  so.  It  was,  it  will  be  remembered — 


104:  DIS  ALITEE  VISUM 

for  dates  in  this  connexion  are  all-important — the 
23rd  of  October  that  had  been  assigned  for  the  special 
Cabinet  meeting.  Now  it  so  chanced  that  sixteen 
days  before,  on  the  7th  of  that  month,  Mr.  Gladstone 
delivered  himself  of  that  famous  Newcastle  speech, 
still  remembered,  in  which  he  declared  that  Jefferson 
Davis  had  '  made  a  nation ',  and  that  the  independence 
of  the  Confederacy  and  dissolution  of  the  American 
Union  were  as  certain  '  as  any  event  yet  future  and 
contingent  could  be '.  That  speech,  a  marvel  of  indis 
cretion — or,  as  Mr.  Gladstone  himself  subsequently 
expressed  it,  'a  mistake  of  incredible  grossness' — 
though  at  the  moment  it  caused  in  the  mind  of 
Mr.  Adams  a  feeling  akin  to  despair,  in  reality  saved 
the  situation  for  him  and  the  country  he  represented. 
It  was  for  the  American  Union  a  large  cash  prize 
drawn  in  Fortune's  lottery. 

Speaking  for  himself — '  playing  off  his  own  bat/  as 
Lord  Palmerston  would  have  expressed  it — Mr.  Glad 
stone  had  foreshadowed  a  ministerial  policy.  The 
utterance  was  inspired ;  in  venturing  on  it  Mr.  Glad 
stone  unquestionably  supposed,  as  he  had  good  cause 
to  know,  he  spoke  the  minds  of  both  Lord  Palmerston 
and  Lord  Eussell.  The  principle  of  the  so-called 
'  collectivity '  of  the  British  Cabinet  has  been  often 
discussed,  and  the  rule  is  well  established  that  minis 
ters  are  in  no  wise  free  to  put  forward  each  l  his  own 
views  at  large  public  meetings  and  elsewhere'.  This 
Mr.  Gladstone  had  now  done.  Moreover,  it  was  noto 
rious  in  ministerial  circles  that  the  Prime  Minister  and 
the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer — Lord  Palmerston 


DLS  ALITER  VISUM  105 

and  Mr.  Gladstone — were  not  in  general  harmony. 
On  the  contrary,  Lord  Palmerston  disliked  and  habit 
ually  thwarted  Mr.  Gladstone ;  and  Mr.  Gladstone 
instinctively  distrusted  Lord  Palmerston.  A  year 
before,  the  two  had  been  l  in  violent  antagonism '  on 
financial  questions.  '  For  two  months/  Lord  Granville, 
himself  a  member  of  the  Cabinet,  had  written,  '  Glad 
stone  had  been  on  half-cock  of  resignation.  .  .  .  Palmer 
ston  has  tried  him  hard  once  or  twice  by  speeches  and 
Cabinet  minutes,  and  says  that  the  only  way  to  deal 
with  him  is  to  bully  him  a  little  ;  and  Palmerston', 
Granville  then  went  on  to  say,  *  appears  to  be  in  the 
right.' 

A  species  of  Cabinet  modus  Vivendi  was  then  arrived 
at,  and  had  since  been  more  or  less  observed  ;  but  the 
two  men  were  by  nature  antagonistic.  Built  on 
wholly  different  models,  they  instinctively  disliked 
each  other.  Politically,  Gladstone,  then  a  man  of 
fifty-four  and  in  the  full  maturity  of  his  great  powers, 
was  plainly  the  coming  man ;  but  Palmerston,  so  to 
speak,  though  a  veteran  close  on  fourscore,  held  the 
fort ;  nor  did  he  propose  to  vacate  it  in  Gladstone's 
favour.  On  the  contrary,  reading  the  future  not 
incorrectly,  he  had  been  known  to  say :  '  Gladstone 
will  soon  have  it  all  his  own  way  ;  and  whenever  he 
gets  my  place  we  shall  have  strange  doings.'  It  was 
a  case  of  armed  Cabinet  observation. 

Under  these  circumstances,  the  Chancellor  of  the 
Exchequer  had  in  the  autumn  of  1862  gone  on  what 
proved  to  be  a  sort  of  triumphal  progress  through  the 
northern  counties.  It  amounted  to  a  popular  ovation ; 


106  BIS  ALITER  VISUM 

and  not  unnaturally  his  colleagues,  especially  his 
chief,  took  cognizance  of  it.  Then  came  the  Newcastle 
speech.  From  his  long-subsequent  published  diary 
entries,  it  appears  that  what  Mr.  Gladstone  there  said 
was  no  hasty,  impromptu  utterance ;  it  had,  on  the 
contrary,  been  long  and  well  considered.  The  infer 
ence  was  unavoidable.  Distrusting  the  fixity  of  the 
Premier's  purpose,  the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer 
intended  to  force  his  hand,  thus  clinching  the  thing. 
In  so  purposing,  Mr.  Gladstone  had,  as  a  member  of 
the  Government,  committed  an  offence  against  official 
propriety — again  to  use  his  own  incomparably  forcible 
characterization,  he  had  been  guilty  of  'a  mistake 
of  incredible  grossness.'  Apparently  it  did  not 
take  the  Premier  long  to  make  up  his  mind  that 
the  offender  must  be  disciplined,  and  that  severely  ; 
not  at  all  improbably  he  was  glad  to  avail  himself  of 
the  opportunity.  So  he  proceeded  at  once  to  intimate 
to  Sir  George  Cornewall  Lewis,  also  a  member  of  the 
Cabinet  and  Gladstone's  parliamentary  rival  as  the 
coming  man,  that  if  he  (Lewis)  did  not  feel  disposed 
to  assume  this  function  himself,  it  must  devolve  on 
the  head  of  the  Government  in  person.  On  the  14th 
of  October,  therefore,  Sir  George  Lewis,  speaking  at 
Hereford,  very  pointedly  controverted  the  position 
taken  by  his  colleague  one  week  before  at  Newcastle. 
The  hand  of  the  Premier  was  on  the  Cabinet  lever. 
The  blind  goddess  had  at  the  critical  moment  inter 
vened  for  the  preservation  of  the  American  Union, 
and  to  bring  about  in  ripeness  of  time  the  downfall 
of  the  Confederacy.  On  the  part  of  those  immediately 


DIS  ALITEB  VISUM  107 

concerned  as  actors  it  was  moreover  all  undesigned. 
Pure  chance ! 

The  Cabinet  meeting  called  for  the  23rd  of  October, 
the  outcome  of  which  had  been  settled  by  the  con 
currence  of  the  Premier,  the  Foreign  Secretary,  and 
the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer — Palmerston,  Kus- 
sell  and  Gladstone — was  for  the  nonce  necessarily 
postponed ;  nor  was  it  ever  afterwards  notified ! 
Mr.  Gladstone  had  been  '  called  down '.  He  having 
received  a  distinct  intimation  that  he  was  neither  the 
Ministry  nor  yet  its  accredited  mouthpiece,  explana 
tions  on  his  part  were  in  order.  None  the  less,  as 
the  secret  working  of  the  springs  and  wires  which 
brought  this  result  about  have  since  been  disclosed, 
the  magnitude  and  imminence  of  the  danger  at  that 
juncture  threatening  the  cause  of  the  American  Union 
are  revealed.  It  was  a  case  of  touch-and-go. 

The  hesitation  and  postponement  brought  about  by 
Lord  Palmerston  in  consequence  of  Mr.  Gladstone's 
Newcastle  speech  thus  saved  the  situation.  The 
veteran  Premier  at  the  moment  apparently  looked 
upon  it  merely  as  action  deferred,  probably  for  a  fort 
night  or  a  month,  more  or  less.  Within  that  space  of 
time,  as  events  then  indicated,  he  confidently  believed 
some  definite  military  result  would  be  reached  in 
America.  Under  the  vigorous  lead  of  Lee  and  '  Stone 
wall  '  Jackson,  the  Confederate  army  might  not  impro 
bably  occupy  Washington.  And  within  the  period 
assigned  something  did  happen  ! — but  not  what  the 
British  Premier  had  anticipated.  At  just  that  critical 
juncture,  and  by  the  merest  chance  as  to  time,  one  of 


108  DIS  ALITER  VISUM 

the  great  events  of  the  nineteenth  century  took  place 
in  America.  On  September  22,  while  the  Prime  Min 
ister  and  the  Foreign  Secretary  were  corresponding 
with  a  view  to  the  immediate  recognition  of  the  slave- 
holding  Confederacy,  the  Emancipation  Proclamation 
of  President  Lincoln  had  been  made  public.  That 
African  servitude  was  an  issue  in  the  American  struggle 
could  110  longer  be  denied  ;  the  attitude  of  the  national 
administration  could  not  be  ignored.  From  that  time 
the  success  of  the  Union  cause  meant  the  freedom  of 
the  slave.  A  conflict  of  Titans,  in  the  conflict,  wholly 
regardless  of  the  influence  it  would  have  on  the 
immediate  European  situation,  the  quondam  Illinois 
rail-splitter,  by  force  of  circumstances,  and  quite  uncon 
sciously  to  himself,  become  transfigured  into  a 
trans- Atlantic  Jove,  had  launched  an  unmistakable 
thunderbolt. 

c  At  first,  in  Europe,  and  more  especially  in  Great 
Britain,  the  proclamation  was  not  taken  seriously ;  dazed, 
apparently,  men  seem  in  no  way  to  have  realized  its 
import!)  On  the  contrary,  it  excited  scorn  and  derision. 
I  have  not  time  here  to  give  sufficing  passages  from 
the  speeches  of  British  public  men  and  the  newspaper 
editorials  of  the  period ;  though  they  to-day  read 
curiously.  I  must  confine  myself  to  a  few  brief 
extracts.  Mr.  Beresford-Hope,  for  instance,  a  highly 
respectable  member  of  Parliament,  energetically  cha 
racterized  the  proclamation  as  '  This  slavish  type  of 
weak  yet  demoniacal  spite,  the  most  unparalleled  last 
card  ever  played  by  a  reckless  gambler'.  And  a 
Mr.  Peacock,  the  member  for  North  Essex,  at  a  great 


DIS  ALITEE  VISUM  109 

Conservative  demonstration  at  Colchester  towards  the 
close  of  October,  declared  that  if  the  proclamation  was 
i  worth  anything  more  than  the  paper  on  which  it  was 
inscribed,  and  if  the  four  millions  of  blacks  were  really 
to  be  emancipated  on  January  1st  [then  two  months  only 
distant],  we  should  be  prepared  to  witness  a  carnage 
so  bloody  as  that  even  the  horrors  of  the  Jacquerie 
and  the  massacres  of  Cawnpore  would  wax  pale  in 
comparison' — and  so  forth  and  so  on.  Furthermore,  the 
proclamation,  he  declared,  was  '  one  of  the  most  devil 
ish  acts  of  fiendish  malignity  which  the  wickedness 
of  man  could  ever  have  conceived '.  And  the  London 
organ  of  the  Confederacy  spoke  within  limits  when  it 
declared  that  while  *  every  organ  of  a  considerable 
party  pronounced  the  edict  infamous ',  a  l  similar 
opinion  of  it  was  entertained  by  every  educated  and 
nearly  every  uneducated  Englishman.' 

Viewed  in  the  cool,  clear  perspective  of  history  and 
through  the  half-century  vista  of  subsequent  events, 
there  is  indeed  now  something  distinctly  humorous  in 
the  simple  and  honest,  but  altogether  complete  self- 
deception  in  which  the  '  educated '  Englishman  then 
nursed  himself.  What  he  really  objected  to,  and  for 
the  best  of  reasons  from  his  point  of  view,  was  the 
onward  movement  towards  '  Democracy ' — that  he 
felt  in  the  very  marrow  of  his  bones  ;  but  he  voiced  it 
as  follows,  the  speaker  in  this  case  being  Mr.  G.  W. 
Bentinck,  then  representing  in  Parliament  West  Nor 
folk.  Addressing  his  constituents  at  King's  Lynn 
upon  American  affairs  immediately  after  the  appear 
ance  of  the  proclamation,  Mr.  Bentinck  began  by 


110  DIS  ALITER  VISUM 

denouncing  slavery  in  general,  and  American  African 
servitude  in  particular.  Having  set  himself  perfectly 
right  by  a  process  of  generalization  on  that  point,  he 
proceeded  as  follows  :  *  Why  is  it  that  wherever  one 
goes  in  all  parts  of  England  one  always  finds — 
thoroughly  as  I  believe  the  institution  of  slavery  is 
detested  in  this  country — every  man  sympathizing 
strongly  with  the  Southerners,  and  wishing  them  all 
success  ?  We  do  so  for  this  reason  .  .  .  Englishmen 
love  liberty,  and  the  Southerner  is  fighting,  not  only 
for  his  life,  but  for  that  which  is  dearer  than  life,  for 
liberty ;  he  is  fighting  against  one  of  the  most  grind 
ing,  one  of  the  most  galling,  one  of  the  most  irritating 
attempts  to  establish  tyrannical  government  that  ever 
disgraced  the  history  of  the  world.'  And  this  was 
the  view  of  the  Proclamation  of  Emancipation  and 
its  purport  almost  universally  held  at  the  moment 
by  the  class  of  which  Mr.  Bentinck  was  representa 
tive.  It  was,  as  the  leading  London  organ  of  that 
class  expressed  it,  an  i atrocious  manifesto'.  Thus 
evoked  from  the  grave  to  stand  a  witness  in  the 
strong  light  of  what  subsequently  occurred,  Mr.  G.  W. 
Bentinck  is  chiefly  useful  as  furnishing  additional 
evidence  of  the  extreme  unwisdom,  even  in  the  case 
of  '  educated  gentlemen ',  of  reaching  absolute  con 
clusions  and  expressing  fixed  opinions  upon  subjects 
in  regard  to  which,  where  not  misinformed,  one  hap 
pens  to  be  altogether  uninformed. 

So  loud,  however,  and  universal  was  the  denuncia 
tion  of  Lincoln's  epoch-marking  manifesto — so  over 
whelming  its  volume — that,  for  the  moment  and 


DIS  ALITER  VISUM  111 

at  first,  it  silenced  opposition.  The  voice  of  protest 
even  was  dumb.  In  the  entire  metropolitan  press  of 
that  day  one  paper  only — the  Daily  News — was  con 
sistently  friendly  in  tone  to  the  Union  side ;  and  even 
the  News  now  for  a  time  seemed  dazed  and  daunted. 
It  referred  to  the  proclamation  apologetically,  pro 
nouncing  it  i  feeble  and  halting ',  and  in  no  respect 
possessing  'the  importance  which  some  persons  in 
England  are  disposed  to  attach  to  it'.  Needless  to 
say,  history  has  not  confirmed  this  contemporaneous 
judgement ;  nor  at  the  moment  did  it  commend  itself 
to  John  Bright.  He,  and  he  first,  so  far  as  appears, 
rose  to  the  level  of  the  occasion.  His  attitude  was 
characteristic ;  and,  fifty  years  later,  commands  that 
admiration  which  at  the  moment  it  did  not  elicit. 
Calmly  defiant,  he  faced  the  storm ;  he,  almost  alone, 
seeing  beneath  the  surface  and  reading  correctly  what 
was  passing  in  the  awakened  but  as  yet  inarticulate 
conscience  of  England.  Wholly  uncalled  upon  to 
pronounce  himself,  he  now  took  immediate  advan 
tage  of  a  chance  occasion,  and  uttered  the  words : 
'  I  applaud  the  proclamation  of  the  President.'  It 
was  certainly  very  fine ;  fine  in  its  courage,  it  was 
finer  yet  in  its  simplicity.  In  the  utterance  there  was 
no  bombast,  no  pose,  no  attitudinizing  or  declama 
tion.  It  went  at  once  to  the  point.  The  dignity  of 
the  great  drama  was  sustained. 

Curiously  enough,  and  by  strange  coincidence,  the 
proclamation  and  the  Newcastle  speech  of  Mr.  Glad 
stone  were  simultaneous — so  much  so  that  they  ap 
peared  and  were  commented  on  in  the  London  journals 


112  DIS  ALITER  VISUM 

of  the  same  week,  that  closing  October  11.  Then 
came  the  storm  of  bitter  denunciation  of  the  former ; 
followed  shortly  by  the  still,  calm  words — '  I  applaud 
the  proclamation  of  the  President/ 

Though  the  suffrage  had  not  then  been  enlarged  to 
reach  the  labouring  classes,  Her  Majesty's  Governments 
of  that  period  were,  as  is  well  known,  scarcely  less 
respectful  of  their  wishes  on  that  account ;  especially 
when,  as  in  this  instance,  a  deep-seated  moral  issue 
was  plainly  involved.  So  a  few  weeks  later  Eichard 
Cobden  wrote  to  Charles  Sumner  as  follows  :  '  I  now 
write  to  assure  you  that  no  unfriendly  act  on  the  part 
of  our  Government,  no  matter  which  of  our  aristocratic 
parties  is  in  power,  towards  your  cause  has  yet  been 
broached.  If  an  attempt  were  made  by  the  Govern 
ment  in  any  way  to  commit  us  to  the  South,  the 
spirit  would  instantly  be  aroused  which  would  drive 
that  Government  from  power/  Like  the  stone  from 
the  sling  of  the  son  of  Jesse,  the  trans-Atlantic  thunder 
bolt  had  done  its  work. 

I  have  thus  set  forth,  I  hope  in  no  unnecessary  or 
uninteresting  detail,  the  influences  and  course  of 
events  which  led  to  what  General  Bernhardi  has,  fifty 
years  later  in  the  work  I  have  cited,  characterized  as 
the  '  unpardonable  [British]  blunder  of  not  supporting 
the  Southern  States  in  the  American  War  of  Seces 
sion  ' ;  and  also  as  the  supineness  of  England  when 
( she  refused  her  assistance  to  the  Southern  States  and 
thus  allowed  a  power  to  arise  in  the  form  of  the  United 
States  of  North  America,  which  now  fifty  years  later 
threatens ',  according  to  this  authority,  '  England's 


DIS  ALITER  VISUM  113 

own  position  as  a  World-Power5.  I  have  explained 
how  it  all  chanced ;  and,  as  the  secret  working  of  the 
hidden  springs  and  wires  which  at  the  time  brought 
about  the  final  result  as  now  recorded  in  history  have, 
one  by  one,  been  disclosed,  the  magnitude  and  inten 
sity  of  the  drama  are  apparent.  It  involved  at  once 
the  discontinuance  of  human  servitude  among  the 
civilized,  and  the  continuance  of  the  great  English- 
speaking  trans- Atlantic  nationality.  As  respects  both, 
it  was  a  very  narrow  chance. 

The  German  authority  I  have  quoted  asserts  that 
those  in  charge  of  Great  Britain's  interests  were  then 
guilty  of  a  blunder,  irreparable.  To  what  was  their 
action  due? 

It  was  due,  I  confidently  assert,  to  human  causes. 
Great  interests  and  issues  it  is  true  were  then  in 
volved  ;  great  forces  were  arrayed.  England,  acting 
in  concert  with  France,  a  willing  ally  in  the  matter  at 
issue,  was  master  of  the  situation.  Holding  indisput 
ably  in  its  hands  the  mastery  of  the  sea,  it  had  but  to 
say  the  word  and  do  the  deed,  and  the  situation 
settled  itself,  the  problem  was  solved.  Those  re 
sponsible  for  the  course  of  events  decided  to  say  the 
word,  and  do  the  deed ;  yet  the  word  remained 
unsaid,  the  deed  undone.  The  course  of  events  then 
ensued  otherwise  than  it  would  have  been  made  to 
ensue.  Why  was  this  thus  ?  It  was  thus,  I  submit, 
solely  from  adventitious  causes.  A  veteran  states 
man,  nearing  eighty,  was  at  the  critical  moment  at 
the  head  of  Her  Majesty's  Government;  himself 
strongly  favouring  the  success  of  the  insurgent  party 


DIS  ALITEK  VISUM 

in  the  trans- Atlantic  conflict,  he  fully  believed  that 
the  success  he  desired  was  in  any  event  assured.  In 
his  conjecture,  it  was  but  a  question  of  time  and  of 
the  exhaustion  of  the  combatants.  Believing  that  the 
hour  of  crisis  had  come,  he  decided  on  an  aggressive 
policy,  an  intervention.  Just  then  an  impetuous  col 
league  he  did  not  like  undertook  to  force  his  hand. 
This  he  resented ;  and  action  was  accordingly  defer 
red.  In  his  belief  it  did  not  matter  much ;  the 
American  issue  was  already  decided,  and  decided  in 
favour  of  the  party  he  wished  to  see  successful.  The 
unexpected  then  occurred.  A  proclamation  ending 
human  slavery  was  promulgated ;  a  moral  issue  pre 
sented  itself.  The  parliamentary  majority  sustaining 
the  veteran's  Government  was  narrow,  and  he  did  not 
wish  to  face  a  division  which  could  equally  well  be 
avoided.  If  let  alone,  the  thing  was  pretty  sure  satis 
factorily  to  settle  itself;  then  why  provoke  an  un 
necessary  home  contest  ?  why  rouse  a  sleeping  dog  ? — 
the  dog  in  question  chancing  in  this  case  to  be  the 
British  conscience. 

Simply,  Palmerston  misapprehended  the  situation — 
was  wrong  in  his  understanding  of  the  facts,  and  his 
anticipation  of  what  was  soon  to  transpire.  In  other 
words,  once  more  the  altogether  unexpected  by  him 
actually  occurred.  Hence,  and  by  that  mere  chance, 
the  course  of  subsequent  events.  None  the  less,  as  I 
have  already  said,  it  was  a  case  of  a  turn  of  Fortune's 
wheel,  with  mighty  consequences  involved. 

And  such  is  history !  And  yet  they  tell  us  history 
can  be  reduced  to  a  science.  I,  on  the  contrary,  hold 


DIS  ALITER  YISUM  115 

that  in  it  chance  and  the  personal  equation  remain 
always  to  be  reckoned  with.  Themistocles  at  Salamis, 
close  upon  twenty-four  centuries  back,  susceptibly  in 
fluenced  by  his  personality  events  to-day  transpiring 
in  the  Balkans ;  and  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe  and 
Abraham  Lincoln  in  like  manner  affected  for  all 
time  what  occurred  in  your  Lancashire  and  Downing 
Street  in  1862.  In  other  words,  though  the  ways  of 
what  we  are  pleased  to  designate  as  Providence  are 
mysterious  and  altogether  past  finding  out,  they,  all 
the  same,  constitute  what  we  call  History.  If  studied 
in  the  reverential  spirit  and  with  a  seeing  eye,  that 
History,  none  the  less,  has  in  it,  now  as  then,  all  the 
elements  of  the  Greek  Tragedy. 

Having  said  thus  much,  I  am  loath  to  run  the  risk 
of  what  may  seem  to  be  an  anti-climax.  Before  bring 
ing  this  lecture  to  a  close,  however,  one  more  word. 
It  relates  to  a  great  English  historical  personality— 
the  most  notable  personality  perhaps  of  the  later  Vic 
torian  period. 

The  course  pursued  by  Mr.  Gladstone,  both  during 
the  transpiring  of  the  events  which  have  been  de 
scribed  and  subsequent  thereto,  was  characteristic  of 
the  man.  Taken  altogether  also,  they  were,  in  my 
judgement,  when  not  highly  creditable  to  him,  not 
otherwise  than  creditable.  Large  by  nature,  and 
easily  stirred  by  suffering  and  wrong,  especially  when 
passing  directly  before  his  eyes,  Mr.  Gladstone's 
course,  both  in  1862  when  Chancellor  of  the  Ex 
chequer  and  six  years  later  when  Prime  Minister, 


116  DIS  ALITEE  VISUM 

though  utterly  inconsistent,  was  as  respects  American 
affairs,  even  in  its  inconsistency,  characteristic.    During 
the  earlier  period,  witnessing  and  sympathizing  in 
tensely  in  the  sufferings  and  distress  of  his  fellow 
country-people  in  Lancashire,  altogether  premature  in 
his  conclusions  as  to  the  outcome  of  our  trans- Atlantic 
struggle,  Mr.  Gladstone  had  persuaded  himself  that, 
from  every  point  of  view,  a  division  of  the  American 
Union    and    the    establishment    of    an    independent 
nationality  based  on  African  slavery  were  desirable. 
Accordingly,  he  seems  at  this  juncture  to  have  thrown 
himself  into  the  support  of  the  proposed  Palmerston- 
Eussell  programme  with  that  fervour  of  sympathetic 
conviction  peculiarly  his.     Nor  was  he  chary,  much 
less  cautious  of  utterance,  as  he  afterwards,   in  the 
day  of  his   sackcloth   and  ashes,  had  good  cause  to 
remember  and  admit.     For  instance,  at  the  critical 
period  in  1862,  he  thus  wrote  in  reply  to  a  letter  from 
an  American  correspondent,  in  terms  unmistakably 
Gladstonese,    setting  forth   'the  heavy  responsibility 
you  [Americans  of  the  North]  incur  in  persevering 
with  this  destructive  and  hopeless  war,  at  the  cost  of 
such  dangers  and  evils  to  yourselves,  to  say  nothing  of 
your  adversaries,  or  of  an  amount  of  misery  inflicted 
upon  Europe  such  as  no  other  civil  war  in  the  history 
of    man   has    ever   brought    upon    those   beyond   its 
immediate  range '.     The  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer 
then  went  on  thus   to  set  forth  the  wickedness  of 
any  further  continuance  of  the  efforts  towards  a  re- 
establishment  of  the  Union :     '  The  impossibility  of 
success  in  a  war  of  conquest  of  itself  suffices  to  make 


DLS  ALITEE  VISUM  117 

it  unjust.  When  that  impossibility  is  reasonably 
proved,  all  the  horror,  all  the  bloodshed,  all  the  evil 
passions,  all  the  dangers  to  liberty  and  order  with 
which  such  a  war  abounds,  come  to  lie  at  the  door  of 
the  party  which  refuses  to  hold  its  hand  and  let  its 
neighbour  be.  You  know  that  in  the  opinion  of 
Europe  that  impossibility  has  [in  the  present  case] 
been  proved.' 

Nevertheless,  as  we  have  seen,  General  Bernhardi 
now  firmly  believes,  in  view  of  the  existing  new- 
century  later  conditions,  that  in  1862  Mr.  Gladstone 
was  guided  by  intuitive  wisdom  in  advocating  the  policy 
at  one  time  decided  upon  but  subsequently  not  pursued. 
Urging  intervention  in  our  Civil  War,  he  stood  ready 
to  accept  every  consequence  intervention  implied. 
From  his  point  of  view,  General  Bernhardi  possibly 
has  grounds  for  his  belief ;  for  it  is  always  impossible 
to  say  what  would  have  resulted  had  something 
occurred  in  the  progress  of  human  affairs  which  it  so 
chanced  did  not  occur.  It  is  useless,  therefore,  now 
to  enter  into  surmises  as  to  what  would,  or  might, 
have  happened  had  the  American  Union  divided  in 
1862,  and  the  Slave-owning  Confederacy  established 
itself  in  the  face  of  a  growing  world-sentiment  bound 
in  the  end  to  make  human  servitude  impossible.  We 
can  only  discuss  the  question  with  a — Dis  Aliter 
Visum !  Mr.  Gladstone,  however,  in  reaching  his 
conclusions  in  1862  was,  if  judged  by  the  actual  out 
come  of  events,  wrong  at  every  point.  That  which  he 
had  characterized  as  '  most  improbable,  if  not  altogether 
impossible  ',  actually  occurred ;  and  through  the  tempo- 


118  DIS  ALITER  VISUM 

rary  if  acute  suffering  of  the  population  of  Lancashire 
the  world  emancipated  itself  from  the  dominion  of  an 
industrial  staple.  That  these  were  both  benefits  to 
the  human  race  no  one  probably  will  now  deny.  They 
even  justified  the  great  price  paid.  Mr.  Gladstone, 
however,  as  the  years  passed  on,  found  himself  in 
a  difficult  position.  It  came  about  in  this  wise  : — All 
that  Lord  Palmerston  anticipated  happened.  When 
Palmerston  had  been  five  years  in  his  grave,  Gladstone 
was  in  his  place  as  Premier ;  and  in  England  Glad 
stone  now  had  it  '  all  his  own  way  '.  But  meanwhile 
the  Franco-Prussian  War  had  brought  on  the  Napo 
leonic  debacle ;  the  position  of  Great  Britain  was 
critical ;  America  was  a  menace,  at  once  sullen  and 
portentous.  So  that  Newcastle  utterance  of  Gladstone 
in  September,  1862,  remained  to  plague  him  in  1870  ; 
it  would  not  away !  True,  it  was  but  one  of  many 
similar  utterances  of  that  time,  and  by  no  means  of 
the  more  offensive  sort.  But,  as  respects  the  utter 
ances  of  public  men,  no  rule  obtains,  especially  with 
Democracies.  Proverbially  ungrateful,  when  memory 
is  concerned  they  are  capricious.  This  was  noticeably 
the  case  with  us  Americans  as  respects  foreign 
utterances  during  our  time  of  tribulation,  the  wounds 
of  which  were  in  1870  still  green.  The  effusions  of 
the  London  Post,  for  instance,  or  the  Saturday  Review, 
or  Bhchvood 3,  venomous  beyond  credence,  had  made  no 
impression.  Idle,  as  well  as  flying  words,  they  passed 
into  early  oblivion.  Not  so  in  the  case  of  the  Times. 
The  editorials  of  '  The  Thunderer '  carried  a  sting, 
3  See  Note  3,  p.  126. 


DIS  ALITER  VISUM  119 

and  the  memory  of  them  was  stored  away  to  await  a 
day  of  reckoning.  Later,  they  furnished  at  Geneva 
a  basis  for  articles  of  indictment  drawn  against  a  whole 
people.  It  was  the  same  with  individuals.  Displays 
of  temper,  ignorance  and  vindictiveness  on  the  part 
of  Mr.  Beresford-Hope,  or  Mr.  Peacock,  or  Mr.  W.  G. 
Bentinck  were  of  no  moment ;  very  respectable  no 
doubt  after  their  kind,  they,  one  and  all,  were  men  of 
no  particular  calibre,  and  what  they  might  say,  one 
way  or  the  other,  mattered  not  at  all.  It  was  not 
otherwise  with  Lord  Brougham,  then  in  his  garrulous 
dotage  ;  nor  with  the  '  Brummagem  Brougham/  as 
John  Bright  happily  denominated  him,  the  egotistical, 
spiteful,  cross-grained  John  Arthur  Roebuck ;  nor, 
going  higher  up,  did  Lord  Wolseley  constitute  an 
exception,  harping  at  one  period,  unhappily  for  him 
self,  on  *  General '  Lee  and  '  Mr. '  Grant ;  nor  again, 
higher  yet,  did  it  greatly  matter  that  the  oracular 
sage  of  Chelsea  epigrammatically  dismissed  it  all  in 
characteristic  fashion  in  the  phrase  l  a  foul  chimney 
burned  out ',  or  delivered  himself  of  an  Ilias  Americana 
in  Nuce.  If  men,  really  eminent,  take  occasion  now 
and  again  to  make  records  for  themselves  which 
they  afterwards  would  fain  have  comfortably  and 
kindly  forgotten,  there  is  no  principle  of  law,  whether 
statute  or  international,  violated  by  their  so  doing. 
Later,  no  one,  not  even  the  unfortunate  transgressor 
himself,  is  held  to  a  very  grave  account.  But  it  was 
otherwise  in  Mr.  Gladstone's  case.  Belonging  to 
a  totally  different  class,  what  he  publicly  said  needed 
to  be  well  considered,  and  a  Nationality  could  be 


120  DIS  ALITER  VISUM 

held  to  account  for  it.  So  it  in  due  time  followed  that 
among  all  the  utterances  of  English  journalists  and 
British  public  men  in  that  period  of  voluble  utterance, 
that  Newcastle  speech  of  his,  then  Chancellor  of  the 
Exchequer  but  now  Premier,  was  retained  most  freshly 
in  American  memory.4  An  envenomed  barb,  it  pene 
trated  deep  and  rankled  sorely.  By  it  he  had  made 
himself,  if  not  actually  odious,  at  least  suspect  in  the 
American  mind  ;  and  the  'insensate'  and  ' degenerate' 
people  of  the  Times  had  now  become  that  same  journal's 
'  mighty  Republic  beyond  the  sea.'  There  is  equally 
little  question  that  America  subsequently  to  1865  held 
itself  ready  when  occasion  offered,  and  it  was  sure  to 
offer,  to  apply  to  Great  Britain  that  rule  of  action  which 
in  its  hour  of  stress  had  been  applied  to  it.  So, 
when  Great  Britain  stood  face  to  face  with  foreign 
complications  directly  following  the  outbreak  of  the 
Franco-German  War,  had  things  gone  a  step  further, 
resulting  in  declared  hostilities,  the  ocean  might  readily 
have  been  covered  with  commerce-destroyers — A  labamas 
emerging  from  American  ports. 

An  ordinary  public  man,  especially  perhaps  an 
ordinary  English  public  man,  would,  under  these 
circumstances,  have  been  naturally  inclined  to  stand 
by  his  record  ;  as  he  had  put  himself  in  the  wrong,  he 
would  have  stayed  in  the  wrong,  challenging  conse 
quences.  Mr.  Gladstone  was  by  nature  and  training 
quite  above  this  small  consistency  so  dear  to  little 
minds.  He  consequently  met  the  contingency,  when 
it  presented  itself  during  his  first  period  of  responsi- 
4  See  Note  4,  p.  128. 


DIS  ALITER  VISUM  121 

bility  in  a  large  way  ;  and,  absolutely  reversing  his 
earlier  course  and  utterances,  recognizing  as  such  his 
'  mistake  of  incredible  grossness ',  he  accomplished  one 
of  the  largest  results,  if  not  on  the  whole  the  largest 
and  most  valuable  result,  of  his  public  life,  at  once  so 
memorable  and  in  results  so  fruitful.  He  restored,  in 
the  only  way  in  which  it  could  be  restored,  mutual 
goodwill  and  friendly  feeling  between  the  two  great 
English-speaking  communities.  I  refer,  of  course,  to 
the  Treaty  of  Washington,  negotiated  in  1870,  and  the 
Geneva  arbitration,  which  in  pursuance  of  its  pro 
visions  sat  in  1872.  Up  to  the  time  of  the  negotia 
tion  of  the  Treaty  of  Washington  it  is  not  too  much 
to  say  that  a  feeling  of  bitter  animosity  towards  Great 
Britain  prevailed  in  both  the  loyal  portion  of  the 
American  Union  and  in  that  which  had  once  been  the 
Confederacy.  Both  sides,  and  especially  that  element 
in  each  of  the  two  sides  which  represented  the  military 
life  of  the  War  of  Secession,  looked  forward  to  a  severe 
retribution  as  sure,  in  the  not  remote  future,  to  fall  to 
the  lot  of  Great  Britain.  This  feeling  Mr.  Gladstone 
met  and  overcame.  Also,  he  did  so,  I  again  say,  in 
a  very  large  way,  the  only  way  possible.  And,  so 
carrying  himself,  he  re-established  friendly  feeling  on 
the  opposite  sides  of  the  Atlantic.  On  the  basis  then 
reached  this  feeling  of  kindly  kinship  has  now  held 
for  nearly  half  a  century,  and  we  have  sufficient  reason 
to  hope  that  it  will  continue  to  hold. 

This  last  is,  however,  a  larger  topic,  and,  as  respects 
it,  I  shall  in  my  present  course  confine  myself  to  this 
passing  reference. 


122  DIS  ALITER  VISUM 

NOTE  1,  PAGE  91. 

The  following  extracts  from  Watts 's  Fads  of  the 
Cotton  Famine  sufficiently  illustrate  the  fluctuations  in 
the  price  of  cotton  and  in  the  fortunes  of  those  trading 
in  it —fluctuations  almost  continuous  throughout  this 
period : — 

In  September  [1863]  discounts  again  advanced  to  eight  or 
nine  per  cent ;  middling  Orleans  was  at  thirty-one  pence,  and 
shirtings  were  thirty-three  pence  per  pound ;  and  again 
employment  decreased.  But  another  and  a  more  powerful 
cause  than  the  price  of  discounts  was  now  at  work.  For 
three  and  a  half  years  had  the  terrible  American  struggle 
gone  on  with  the  usual  varying  fortunes  of  war,  and  trade 
was  gradually  accommodating  itself  to  war  prices,  when 
a  rumour  crossed  the  Atlantic  that  men  were  meeting  at 
Niagara  Falls  to  try  to  arrange  the  terms  of  peace.  Straight 
way  men,  instead  of  shaking  hands  and  throwing  up  their 
hats  in  thankfulness  that  the  mutual  slaughter  of  their 
American  brethren  was  at  an  end,  looked  into  each  other's 
faces  with  blank  despair,  as  if  peace,  instead  of  war,  was  the 
greatest  curse  upon  earth.  Nor  was  it  without  reason  that 
this  fear  and  terror  was  felt  and  expressed.  Middling  Orleans 
cotton  fell  from  thirty-one  pence  to  twenty-three  pence  half 
penny,  and  shirtings  from  thirty-three  pence  to  twenty-four 
pence  per  pound ;  and  men  who  held  largely  of  cotton,  twist 
or  cloth,  found  their  fortunes  vanished  in  a  night  at  the 
breath  of  this  rumour.  All  trade  arrangements  were  again 
in  chaos.  .  .  . 

...  In  the  beginning  of  the  year  1865  the  Bombay  corre 
spondent  of  The  Times  wrote  to  the  following  effect :  Up  to 
1860  the  sum  paid  by  Europe  for  the  whole  cotton  export  of 
India  was  not  above  seven  millions  sterling  annually.  In 
1860-1  the  import  of  bullion  into  Bombay  alone  was  six  and 
one-third  millions  sterling,  chiefly  in  payment  for  cotton. 
But  in  the  three  following  years,  Europe  paid  to  India  nearly 


DIS  ALITER  VISUM  123 

forty  millions  sterling  per  annum,  one  half  of  which  was  in 
bullion.  In  Calcutta  the  trade  is  almost  entirely  in  the  hands 
of  Europeans,  the  Bengal ese  playing  but  a  subordinate  part. 
But  in  Bombay  the  trade  is  largely  in  the  hands  of  the  caste- 
less  native  Parsees  ;  and  many  of  them,  and  a  smaller  number 
of  Scotchmen,  who  a  few  years  ago  were  petty  brokers,  are 
now  millionaires.  A  Hindoo,  named  Premchund  Roychund, 
lately  a  subordinate  clerk  in  an  English  house  on  £30  a  year,  has 
by  daring  speculation  amassed  two  millions  sterling.  Rustonjee, 
the  second  son  of  the  late  Sir  Jamsetjee  Jejeebhoy,  who 
inherited  but  a  moderate  fortune,  has  become  the  millionaire 
of  Bombay,  his  capital  being  reckoned  at  two  and  a  half 
millions  sterling.  Twenty  such  cases  could  be  mentioned.  .  .  . 
.  .  .  Mr.  Henry  Ashworth,  speaking  at  the  annual  meeting 
of  the  Manchester  Chamber  of  Commerce,  30th  January,  1865, 
said  :  'The  quantity  of  cotton  consumed  in  1860  was  valued 
at  £34,000,000.  Last  year  (1 864),  for  a  quantity  probably  not 
exceeding  one-half  what  we  received  in  1860,  we  had  to  pay, 
in  round  numbers,  £80,000,000.  In  1860  our  consumption 
was  one  billion  eighty- three  million  pounds.  In  1864  it  was 
five  hundred  and  sixty-one  million  pounds,  or  about  fifty-one 
per  cent,  of  the  former  year.  But  the  inferiority  of  the 
material  required  much  more  labour ;  hence  the  fifty-one 
per  cent,  of  cotton  consumed  required  from  sixty  to  seventy 
per  cent,  of  the  hands  to  work  it  up.  In  1860  American 
cotton  furnished  five  days'  labour  out  of  six  in  every  week  ; 
in  1864  it  did  not  furnish  enough  for  half  a  day  per  week. 
In  1860  we  paid  for  Indian  cotton  £3,500,000,  and  in  1864 
nearly  £40,000,000.  The  quantity  had  increased  two  and 
a  half  times  (from  two  hundred  and  fourteen  million  pounds 
to  five  hundred  and  thirteen  million  pounds),  and  the  price 
had  increased  ten  or  eleven  times.' 

The  highest  point  reached  by  cotton  in  America 
was  on  August  23,  1864,  when,  in  the  greatly  depre 
ciated  paper  currency  then  in  use,  middling  upland 
sold  for  $1.89  per  pound  on  the  New  York  market, 


124  DIS  ALITER  VLSUM 

and  for  $1.95  in  Boston.     Eight  months  later  the  price 
fell  to  35  cents. 

NOTE  2,  PAGE  97. 

The  view  in  these  lectures  advanced  as  to  the 
origin  of  the  American  Civil  War,  the  theories, 
economical  and  otherwise,  upon  which  those  con 
stituting  the  Confederacy  challenged  the  trial  of 
strength,  and  the  influence  of  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin  upon 
public  opinion,  were  at  the  time  appreciated  in  Europe 
and  distinctly  stated.  For  example,  a  French  writer, 
Eugene  Pelletan,  thus  expressed  himself  upon  these 
points,  somewhat  theatrically  addressing  his  paper 
to  the  potentate  then,  as  in  these  lectures,  commonly 
designated  as  l  King  Cotton '  :— 

But  one  day  an  honest  man  named  John  Brown  tried  to 
discover  whether  there  were  any  pulsation  left  beneath  the 
negro's  cotton  shirt.  This  was  an  error,  I  admit.  You 
seized  the  noble  champion  of  humanity,  you  tried  him,  and 
you  hung  him.  Bravo,  sir,  I  recognize  you  by  this  act  of 
clemency,  for  you  could  have  burnt  him  alive  at  the  stake  ! 
But  when  he  was  executed  a  great  shudder  swept  through 
the  North  of  America.  Thenceforth  the  sacred  cause  of  Abo 
litionism  was  invested  with  the  halo  of  martyrdom. 

It  had  already  sounded  its  tocsin,  in  the  shape  of  a  paltry 
little  book  written  by  a  woman  ;  and  it  was  less  than  a  book, 
it  was  a  novel.  You  smiled  compassionately  at  it,  did  you 
not?  Your  children  may  cry  over  it  for  a  long  while. 
America  read  Mrs.  Stowe's  elegy  and  bewailed  her  state ;  and 
the  presidency  of  Abraham  Lincoln  sprang  from  the  presidency 
of  Uncle  Tom. 

I  breathe  again.  I  have  rid  me  of  a  nightmare,  for  the 
time  for  justice  had  arrived  :  right  is  not  a  lie.  Scarcety  had 
the  South  learned  the  election  of  Lincoln  before  with  their 


DIS  ALITEE  VISUM  125 

impious  hand,  already  polluted  with  the  blood  of  the  slave, 
they  dared  to  strike  their  mother,  to  strangle  the  Constitu 
tion,  throwing  to  the  winds  the  common  glory  of  their  common 
country,  telling  the  Union  their  intention  to  walk  thence 
forward  independently  with  the  negro  trampled  beneath  their 
feet. 

You,  sire,  and  you  alone,  without  provocation  or  excuse, 
have  broken  the  compact  which  you  signed  and  swore  to 
keep.  In  your  rebellious  folly  you  said  to  yourself,  '  What 
have  I  to  fear  from  the  North,  from  the  lovers  of  peace  and 
dollars'?  Will  they  dare  to  raise  an  army  for  the  abstract 
satisfaction  of  unity  ?  And  supposing  that  they  dare,  I  need 
only  hold  fast  to  my  bales  of  cotton.  At  one  blow  I  can 
cause  a  famine  in  all  the  markets  of  Europe,  and  array  all 
the  spindles  and  looms  of  Manchester  and  Mulhouse  against 
these  fanatical  Yankees  and  their  Constitution.  Then  England 
and  France  must  of  necessity — either  jointly  or  separately— 
intervene  in  favour  of  slavery  in  order  to  save  their  cotton. 

'  And  if  they  hesitate,  if  they  shrink  from  armed  mediation, 
what  will  they  do  with  their  disbanded  hosts  of  cotton- 
spinners?  Will  they  be  allowed  to  wander  at  random,  pale 
and  ragged,  like  the  spectres  of  famine,  about  the  extinguished 
furnaces  and  silent  factories,  until  at  last,  tired  of  suffering, 
they  make  one  desperate  effort  and  throw  themselves  upon 
the  bayonets  of  their  countrymen  ?  Certainly  not ;  France  as 
well  as  England  must  prefer  to  open  the  Southern  markets 
at  any  cost,  even  by  force  of  shot  and  shell.' 

This  is  the  impious  calculation  you  made  when  you  rebelled 
against  the  Constitution.  You  condemned  the  poorer  classes 
of  Europe  to  want  for  work,  in  other  words,  to  a  slow  death, 
so  as  to  preserve  slavery  in  all  its  purity ;  after  adding 
another  crime  to  your  list,  you  hauled  down  the  federal  flag 
waving  over  Fort  Sumter. 

An  Address  to  King  Cotton.  By  Eugene  Pelletan.  Loyal 
Pub.  Socy.,  No.  12,  1863. 


126  DLS  ALITER  VISUM 

NOTE  3,  PAGE  118. 

Extracts  from  an  editorial  paper  in  BlackwoocTs 
Edinburgh  Magazine  for  November,  1863,  Vol. 
XCIY :- 

If  we  were  required  to  specify  the  most  prominent  and 
characteristic  feature  exhibited  in  common  by  the  Govern 
ment,  press,  and  people  of  Federal  America,  we  should  say 
it  was  shameless  impudence — impudence  which  tramples  on 
consistency  and  derides  confutation.  It  has  appeared  in 
every  pretence  they  have  put  forward  for  the  justification  of 
the  war.  Something  more  than  chance  seems  to  have  guided 
them  in  their  unerring  choice  of  arguments  that  never  deviate 
into  plausibility,  and  assertions  that  never  stumble  on  the 
truth.  .  .  .  They  profess  that  what  has  more  than  anything 
raised  the  indignation  of  their  guileless  and  virtuous  citizens 
is  the  treachery  with  which  secession  was  accomplished — as  if 
the  most  characteristic  and  most  applauded  feature  in  Fede 
ral  diplomacy  had  not  always  been  triumphant  chicanery. 
Ignorant  alike  of  the  foundation  and  the  value  of  their  liberty, 
and  ready  to  sacrifice  at  the  shrine  of  any  detestable  and 
ridiculous  idol  that  chances  to  govern  the  hour,  they  persist  in 
proclaiming  their  effort  to  enslave  the  South  as  a  '  battle  for 
freedom.'  .  .  .  Manifestly,  the  element  visible  in  all  this  is 
impudence,  pure  and  simple.  There  is  no  plausibility  in 
these  utterances — no  consistency,  no  faith  on  the  part  of  the 
utterers.  The  matter  being  what  we  have  said,  there  is 
certainly  nothing  in  the  manner  which  should  render  them 
more  acceptable.  Whether  they  proceed  from  clergymen, 
or  senators,  or  stump-orators,  from  press  or  people,  they  are 
equally  distinguished  by  repulsive  coarseness,  vulgarity,  and 
inconsequence.  ...  If  [the  States  composing  the  Confederacy] 
ever  had  a  talent  for  bombast  and  boasting,  they  appeared 
to  have  lost  that  useful  faculty  when  they  seceded  from  the 
Union,  leaving  the  North  to  enjoy  the  double  share.  All 
their  appeals  have  been  made  rather  by  acts  and  demeanour 
than  words.  Dignity  in  misfortune,  modesty  and  moderation 


DIS  ALITER  VISUM  127 

in  success ;  conduct  in  council,  bravery  in  the  Held ;  the 
exhibition,  in  a  struggle  for  that  independence  which  free 
nations  have  always  professed  most  to  value,  of  a  constancy 
and  heroism  almost  unequalled  ;  the  endurance  of  uncommon 
calamities  with  cheerfulness,  and  the  absence  of  vindictiveness 
under  the  most  hideous  provocation ; — such  are  the  demands 
the  South  makes  on  us — and  the  results  are  not  encouraging 
to  the  heroic  virtues.  ...  If  the  North  had  little  claim  on  our 
forbearance  at  the  outset  of  the  quarrel,  it  has  far  less  now. 
It  is  generally  agreed  in  England  that  this  power  which  we 
so  scrupulously  refrain  from  embarrassing  is  persisting  in 
a  hopeless  war  from  the  basest  motives,  and  conducting  it  in 
a  way  that  casts  mankind  back  two  centuries  towards  barbar 
ism.  We  say,  then,  that  if,  by  joining  France  in  intervention, 
we  should  raise  the  blockade,  relieve  our  starving  population, 
and  break  up  the  political  system  which  is  a  standing  menace 
to  us  through  the  weak  point  of  Canada,  we  should  be  not 
only  acting  in  consonance  with  right,  but  fulfilling  an  obvious 
duty  to  ourselves. 

The  following  is  from  the  issue  for  January,  1863  :  - 

We  will  not  follow  Mr.  Cobden's  hypothetical  view  of  what 
would  be  done  if  in  America  there  were  now  *  men  of  the 
grasp  of  mind  of  a  Franklin,  a  Jefferson,  an  Adams,  or 
a  Washington '.  No  such  men  exist  nowadays.  Those  men 
were  all  of  them  trained  as  British  subjects.  We  have  now 
before  us  the  result  of  a  democratic  training,  and  it  speaks 
for  itself.  Our  business  is  to  deal  not  with  the  departed,  but 
the  present  rulers  of  that  distracted  country. 

So  in  the  May  number  of  the  same  magazine  the 
United  States  is  thus  referred  to :  '  the  system,  be  it 
remembered,  whose  inevitable  results  have  been  to 
make  a  Lincoln  the  chief  magistrate,  and  a  Seward 
the  chief  minister— a  system  which  has  for  years  been 
the  most  corrupt  ever  known,  and  the  inability  of 


128  DIS  ALITER  VISUM 

which  to  produce  any  kind  of  political  merit  is  one  of 
the  wonders  of  the  world.' 

NOTE  4,  PAGE  120. 

Writing  thirty-four  years  later,  Mr.  Gladstone  thus, 
again  characteristically,  referred  to  this  experience,  of 
which,  in  the  language  of  Lord  Morley,  his  biographer, 
i  he  was  destined  never  to  hear  the  last ' : — 

I  have  yet  to  record,  he  writes  (July,  1896),  in  the  frag 
ment  already  more  than  once  mentioned,  an  undoubted  error, 
the  most  singular  and  palpable,  I  may  add  the  least  excusable 
of  them  all,  especially  since  it  was  committed  so  late  as  in  the 
year    1852,  when   I    had   outlived  half  a  century.     In  the 
autumn  of  that  year,  and  in  a  speech  delivered  after  a  public 
dinner  at  Newcastle-upon-Tyne,  I  declared  in  the  heat  of  the 
American  struggle  that  Jefferson  Davis  had  made  a  nation ; 
that  is  to  say,  that  the  division  of  the  American  Republic  by 
the  establishment  of  a  Southern  or  Secession  State  was  an 
accomplished  fact.      Strange   to  say,  this   declaration,  most 
unwarrantable  to  be  made  by  a  Minister  of  the  Crown  with 
no  authority  other  than  his  own,  was  not  due  to  any  feeling 
of  partisanship  for  the  South  or  hostility  to  the  North.  .  .  . 
Not  only  was  this  a  misjudgement  of  the  case,  but,  even  if 
it  had  been  otherwise,  I  was  not  the  person  to  make  the 
declaration.     I  really,  though  most  strangely,  believed  that  it 
was  an  act  of  friendliness  to  all  America  to  recognize  that  the 
struggle  was  virtually  at  an  end.     I  was  not  one  of  those 
who  on  the  ground  of  British  interests  desired  a  division  of 
the   American   Union.      My   view   was    distinctly   opposite. 
I   thought  that  while  the  Union  continued  it  never  could 
exercise  any  dangerous  pressure  upon  Canada   to   estrange 
it  from  the  empire — our  honour,  as  I  thought,  rather  than 
our  interest  forbidding  its  surrender.     But  were  the  Union 
split,  the  North,  no  longer  checked  by  the  jealousies  of  slave- 
power,   would   seek  a  partial  compensation   for   its   loss   in 


DIS  ALITER  VISUM  129 

annexing,  or  trying  to  annex,  British  North  America.  Lord 
Palmerston  desired  the  severance  as  a  diminution  of  a  dan 
gerous  power,  but  prudently  held  his  tongue. 

That  my  opinion  was  founded  upon  a  false  estimate  of  the 
facts  was  the  very  least  part  of  my  fault.  I  did  not  perceive 
the  gross  impropriety  of  such  an  utterance  from  a  Cabinet 
Minister  of  a  power  allied  in  blood  and  language,  and  bound 
to  loyal  neutrality.  .  .  .  My  offence  was  indeed  only  a  mistake, 
but  one  of  incredible  grossness,  and  with  such  consequences 
of  offence  and  alarm  attached  to  it  that  my  failing  to  perceive 
them  justly  exposed  me  to  very  severe  blame.  It  illustrates 
vividly  that  incapacity  which  my  mind  so  long  retained,  and 
perhaps  still  exhibits,  an  incapacity  of  viewing  subjects  all 
round,  in  their  extraneous  as  well  as  in  their  internal  pro 
perties,  and  thereby  of  knowing  when  to  be  silent  and  when 
to  speak. — Morley,  Life  of  Gladstone,  Vol.  II,  pp.  81-82. 


R 


IV 
A   GREAT   HISTORIC   CHARACTER 

AND 

VAE  VICTIS 


IV 
A   GREAT  HISTORIC  CHARACTER 

AND 

VAE  VICTIS 

IN  the  course  of  his  memorable,  and  still  remem 
bered,  speech  on  American  taxation,  delivered  in  the 
House  of  Commons  in  1774,  Edmund  Burke  made  use 
of  this  expression,  i  Great  men  are  the  guideposts 
and  landmarks  in  the  State.'  In  no  way  original  or 
profound,  the  figure  of  speech  is  none  the  less  peculiar 
to  him  who  then  made  use  of  it — it  bears  Burke's 
unmistakable  mint-mark.  But  the  question  next  na 
turally  arises  as  to  those  fairly  entitled  to  be  classed 
as  '  great  men '.  Posterity  has  a  way  in  such  cases  of 
calling  for  credentials :  which,  on  inspection,  are  not 
infrequently  pronounced  defective  and  insufficient. 
In  the  case,  for  instance,  of  those  by  name  passed  on 
by  Burke  in  the  speech  referred  to — George  Grenville, 
Charles  Townshend  and  the  rest — not  one  is  to-day 
recalled  as  '  great '.  Gone  from  memory,  they  abide 
only  as  names  attached  to  shades  lurking  amid  the 
urns  and  sepulchres  of  the  parliamentary  graveyard. 
Among  the  wellnigh  innumerable  public  characters 
of  that  somewhat  commonplace  period  Burke  himself 
was  ' great';  so  also  was  Chatham.  The  rest,  con 
spicuous  enough  in  their  day,  when  not  completely 
forgotten  are  at  best  but  vaguely  recalled. 


134      A  GREAT  HISTORIC  CHARACTER 

American  history  now  covers  four  centuries.  Reach 
ing  back  to  the  first  Tudor,  four  centuries  constitute 
a  very  respectable  antiquity.  During  those  centuries, 
how  many  world  celebrities — those  entitled  to  be 
classed  among  the  really  '  great ' —  has  America  pro 
duced?  Three  might,  I  suppose,  be  very  generally 
accepted — the  credentials  of  Washington,  Franklin, 
and  Lincoln  bear  closest  scrutiny.  All  others  would, 
I  fancy,  be  challenged.  Of  the  three  I  have  named 
enough  has,  however,  been  said.  They  are  thrice-told 
tales ;  so  to-day  it  is  my  purpose  to  examine  another 
set  of  credentials,  seeking  to  learn  why  the  bearer  of 
them  should  not  also  be  classified  among  the  '  great ', 
completing  an  American  quartette,  so  to  speak — our 
constellation. 

Among  those  inhabiting  the  region  once  calling 
itself  the  Confederate  States  of  America  there  is  no 
question  that  Robert  Edward  Lee  is  the  ideal,  the 
memory  most  cherished.  In  him,  more  than  in  any 
other  one  man,  is  personified  what  throughout  a  large 
and  now  wholly  loyal  section  is  still  referred  to  as 
'  The  Lost  Cause '. 

In  connexion  with  it,  he  stands  much  as  Hannibal 
stands  in  his  connexion  with  another  no  less  'lost 
cause '  twenty-one  centuries  before.  In  a  recent  care 
ful  study  of  Lee,  by  one  who  has  given  to  his  subject 
much  thought  and  thorough  inquiry,  I  find  it  asserted 
that  I  individually  have  by  my  utterances  '  surely 
done  more  than  any  one  else  to  help  Lee  on  to  the 
national  glory  which  is  his  due/  Whether  this  be  so 
or  not,  to-day,  and  Oxford  here  is  a  sufficiently  appro- 


AND  VAE  VICTIS  135 

priate  arena  for  the  purpose,  I  propose  to  essay  a  more 
ambitious  flight.  The  authority  I  have  just  quoted 
spoke  of  t  national  glory '.  I  ambition  a  larger  theme, 
world  fame.  It  so  chances,  however,  that  Lee  sug 
gests  himself  just  now  in  a  way  most  opportune  with 
these  lectures  of  mine ;  for  he  illustrates,  as  no  other 
does  or  could,  certain  of  the  historical  features  con 
nected  with  our  American  development  which  I  have 
endeavoured  to  emphasize  and  explain.  And,  first, 
State  Sovereignty. 

I  do  not  propose  here  and  now  to  enter  into  any 
eulogium  of  General  Lee,  to  recount  the  incidents  of 
his  career,  or  to  estimate  the  place  finally  to  be 
assigned  him  among  great  military  commanders. 
This  has  been  sufficiently  done  by  others  far  better 
qualified  than  I  for  the  task.  I  shall  also  assume  on 
the  part  of  my  audience  a  certain  general  acquaintance 
with  essential  historic  facts.  Coming  then  directly  to 
the  matter  in  hand,  my  own  observation  tells  me  that 
the  charge  still  most  commonly  made  against  Lee  in 
that  section  of  my  own  country  to  which  I  belong 
and  with  which  I  sympathize  is  that,  in  plain  lan 
guage,  he  was  false  to  his  flag.  Educated  at  the 
national  military  academy,  subsequently  an  officer 
of  the  United  States  Army,  he  abjured  his  alle 
giance  and  bore  arms  against  the  Government 
he  had  sworn  to  uphold.  In  other  words,  he  was 
a  military  traitor.  I  state  the  charge  in  the  tersest 
language  possible ;  and  the  facts  are  as  stated ! 
Having  done  so,  and,  for  the  purpose  of  the  present 
occasion,  admitting  the  facts,  I  add  as  the  result 


136       A  GEEAT  HISTORIC  CHARACTER 

of  mature  reflection,  that  under  exactly  similar  con 
ditions  I  would  myself  have  done  as  Lee  did.  In  fact, 
I  do  not  see  how,  placed  as  he  was  placed,  any  other 
course  was,  humanly  speaking,  open  to  him. 

And  now,  fairly  entered  on  the  first  phase  of  my 
theme,  I  must  hurry  on ;  for  I  have  much  ground  to 
cover,  and  scant  time  in  which  to  cover  it.  I  must  be 
concise,  but  must  not  fail  to  be  explicit.  And  first  as 
to  the  right  or  wrong  of  secession,  this  theoretically. 

State  Sovereignty,  so  called,  as  a  feature  in  the 
development  of  American  nationality,  I  discussed, 
sufficiently  I  hope,  in  the  initial  lecture  of  the  present 
course.  In  any  event,  I  do  not  propose  to  repeat  what 
I  then  said,  thus  twice  going  over  the  same  ground. 

Coming  directly  to  the  point,  my  contention,  it  will 
be  remembered,  was  that  every  man  in  the  eleven 
States  seceding  from  the  Union  had  in  1861,  whether 
he  would  or  no,  to  decide  for  himself  whether  to 
adhere  to  his  State  or  to  the  Nation  ;  and  finally 
I  asserted  that,  whichever  way  he  decided,  if  only 
he  decided  honestly,  putting  self-interest  behind  him, 
he  decided  right. 

This  to  foreign  ears  sounds,  I  know,  like  a  contradic 
tion  in  terms  ;  none  the  less  it  was  indisputably  so.  It 
was  a  question  of  sovereignty,  and  consequent  alle 
giance — State  or  National ;  and  from  a  decision  of  that 
question  there  was  in  a  seceded  State  escape  for  no  man. 

Starting  from  this  as  a  premise,  I  pass  on  to  Lee's 
individual  case.  Lee  was  not  a  Secessionist ;  and  he  did 
hold  a  commission  in  the  United  States  Army.  A  man 
of  fifty-four,  he  had  in  March,  1861,  become  colonel  of 


AND  VAE  VICTIS  137 

the  1st  Cavalry.  Though  a  Virginian,  he  had,  with 
intuitive  common  sense,  at  the  outset  struck  the 
nail  squarely  on  the  head,  when  amid  the  Babel  of 
discordant  voices  heralding  the  outbreak  of  active 
hostilities  he  wrote  to  his  son,  i  It  is  idle  to  talk  of 
secession ';  the  national  government,  as  it  had  then  got 
to  be,  l  can  only  be  dissolved  by  revolution.'  This  puts 
the  case  in  a  nutshell ;  and  the  human,  the  individual 
element  now  entered  as  a  dominant  factor,  indeed  the 
controlling  factor,  in  its  solution. 

People  had  to  elect ;  the  modus  vivendi  was  at  an  end. 
Was  the  State  sovereign;  or  was  the  Nation  sovereign? 
And,  with  a  shock  of  genuine  surprise  that  any  doubt 
should  exist  on  that  head,  eleven  States  arrayed  them 
selves  on  the  side  of  the  sovereignty  of  the  State,  and 
claimed  the  unquestioning  allegiance  of  their  citizens ; 
and  I  think  it  not  unsafe  to  assert  that  nowhere  did 
the  original  spirit  of  State  Sovereignty  and  allegiance 
to  the  State  then  survive  in  greater  intensity  and  more 
unquestioning  form  than  in  Virginia — the  *  Old  Domi 
nion  ' — the  mother  of  States  and  of  Presidents.  And 
here  I  approach  a  sociological  factor  in  the  problem, 
more  subtle,  and  also  more  potent,  than  any  legal  con 
sideration.  It  has  no  standing  in  court ;  but  the 
historian  may  not  ignore  it:  while,  with  the  biographer 
of  Lee,  it  is  crucial.  Upon  it  judgement  hinges.  I  have 
not  time  to  consider  how  or  why  such  a  result  came 
about,  but  of  the  fact  there  can,  I  hold,  be  no  question 
—State  pride,  a  sense  of  individuality,  has  immemo- 
rially  entered  more  largely  and  more  intensely  into 
Virginia  and  Virginians  than  into  any  other  section  or 


138      A  GEEAT  HISTOKIC  CHAEACTEE 

community  of  the  United  States.  Only  in  South  Caro 
lina  and  among  Carolinians,  on  the  trans- Atlantic  con 
tinent,  was  a  somewhat  similar  sense  of  locality  and 
obligation  of  descent  to  be  found.  There  was  in  it  a 
flavour  of  the  Hidalgo,  or  of  the  pride  which  the  Mac- 
Gregors  and  Campbells  took  in  their  clan  and  country. 
In  other  words,  the  Virginian  and  Carolinian  had  in 
the  middle  of  the  last  century  not,  to  any  appreci 
able  extent,  undergone  nationalization. 

But  this,  it  will  be  replied,  though  true  of  the 
ordinary  man  and  citizen,  should  not  have  been  true 
of  the  graduate  of  the  military  academy — the  officer 
of  the  Army  of  the  United  States.  Winfield  Scott  and 
George  H.  Thomas — both  Virginians,  both  in  1861 
holding  commissions  in  the  national  army,  and  the 
last  named  not  only  a  graduate  of  the  military 
academy  in  the  same  class  with  Lee,  but  in  1861 
an  officer  in  the  same  regiment — Lieutenant-General 
Winfield  Scott  and  Major,  afterwards  Major-General 
George  H.  Thomas,  did  not  so  construe  their  allegi 
ance  ;  when  the  issue  was  presented,  they  remained 
true  to  their  flag  and  to  their  oaths.  Eobert  E.  Lee, 
false  to  his  oath  and  flag,  was  a  renegade !  And,  as 
a  rule,  renegades  are  not  included  among  the  truly 
great  of  the  world.  The  answer  is  brief  and  to  the 
point :  the  conditions  in  the  several  cases  cited  were 
not  the  same — neither  Scott  nor  Thomas  was  Lee. 
It  was  our  Boston  Dr.  Holmes,  the  freshly  remem 
bered  Autocrat  of  the  Breakfast  Table,  who  long  ago 
declared  that  the  child's  education  begins  about  one 
hundred  and  fifty  years  before  it  is  born ;  and  it  is 


AND  VAE  VICTIS  139 

quite  impossible  to  separate  any  man — least  of  all, 
perhaps,  a  full-blooded  Virginian— from  his  pre-natal 
conditions  and  living  environment.  From  them  he 
drew  his  being ;  in  them  he  exists.  Robert  E.  Lee 
was  the  embodiment  of  those  conditions,  the  creature 
of  that  environment — a  Virginian  of  Virginians.  His 
father  was  *  Light-Horse  Harry'  Lee,  a  devoted  follower 
of  Washington;  but  in  January,  1792,  '  Light-Horse 
Harry '  wrote  to  Mr.  Madison,  '  No  consideration  on 
earth  could  induce  me  to  act  a  part,  however  gratifying 
to  me,  which  could  be  construed  into  disregard  of,  or 
faithlessness  to,  this  Commonwealth ' ;  and  later,  when 
in  1798  those  Virginia  and  Kentucky  resolutions  to 
which  I  have  in  these  lectures  already  referred  as 
first  embodying  the  principle  of  secession — when, 
I  say,  these  fateful  resolutions  were  in  1798  under 
discussion  in  the  legislature  of  Virginia,  so-called, 
*  Light-Horse  Harry '  exclaimed  in  words,  so  far  as 
his  son  was  concerned,  ominously  prophetic,  '  Virginia 
is  my  country ;  her  will  I  obey,  however  lamentable 
the  fate  to  which  it  may  subject  me.'  Born  in  this 
environment,  nurtured  in  these  traditions,  to  ask 
Lee  to  raise  his  hand  against  Virginia  was  like  ask 
ing  Montrose  or  the  MacCallum  More  to  lead  a  force 
designed  for  the  subjection  of  the  Highlands  and  the 
destruction  of  the  clans.  Where  such  a  stern  election 
is  forced  upon  a  man  as  then  confronted  Lee,  the 
single  thing  the  fair-minded  investigator  has  to  take 
into  account  is  the  loyalty,  the  single-mindedness  of 
the  election.  Was  it  devoid  of  selfishness  ?  Was  it 
free  from  any  baser  and  more  worldly  motive  ?  Was 


140      A  GREAT  HISTORIC  CHARACTER 

ambition,  pride,  jealousy,  revenge,  or  self-interest 
eliminated  ?  To  these  questions  there  can,  in  the  case 
of  Lee,  be  but  one  answer. 

One  April  night  in  1861  he  paced  the  floor  at 
Arlington,  the  lights  of  Washington  gleaming  in  the 
distance  across  the  broad  Potomac,  and  then,  after 
long  and  trying  mental  wrestling,  he  threw  in  his  fate 
with  Virginia.  In  doing  so  he  knowingly  sacrificed 
everything  which  man  prizes  most,  his  dearly  beloved 
home,  his  means  of  support,  his  professional  standing, 
his  associates,  a  brilliant  future  assured  him.  Born 
a  slaveholder  in  a  race  of  slaveholders,  he  was  him 
self  no  defender,  much  less  an  advocate  of  slavery ; 
on  the  contrary,  in  his  place  he  did  not  hesitate  to 
pronounce  it  *  a  moral  and  political  evil '.  Later,  he 
manumitted  his  bondsmen.  He  did  not  believe  in 
secession ;  as  a  right  reserved  under  the  Constitution 
he  pronounced  it  '  idle  talk ' :  but,  as  a  Virginian,  he 
also  added,  'if  the  Government  is  disrupted,  I  shall 
return  to  my  native  State  and  share  the  miseries  of 
my  people,  and  save  in  defence  will  draw  my  sword 
on  none/  Next  to  his  high  sense  of  allegiance  to 
Virginia  was  Lee's  pride  in  his  profession.  He  was 
a  soldier ;  as  such  rank,  and  the  possibility  of  high 
command  and  great  achievement,  were  very  dear  to 
him.  His  choice  put  rank  and  command  behind  him. 
He  quietly  and  silently  made  the  greatest  sacrifice 
a  soldier  can  be  asked  to  make.  With  war  plainly 
impending,  the  foremost  place  in  the  army  of  which 
he  was  an  officer  was  now  tendered  him ;  his  answer 
was  to  lay  down  the  commission  he  already  held. 


AND  VAE  VICTIS  141 

Virginia  had  been  drawn  into  the  struggle ;  and, 
though  he  recognized  no  necessity  for  the  state  of 
affairs,  '  in  my  own  person/  he  wrote,  '  I  had  to  meet 
the  question  whether  I  should  take  part  against  my 
native  State ;  I  have  not  been  able  to  make  up  my 
mind  to  raise  my  hand  against  my  relatives,  my  chil 
dren,  my  home.'  It  may  have  been  treason  to  take 
this  position ;  the  man  who  took  it,  uttering  these 
words  and  sacrificing  as  he  sacrificed,  may  have  been 
technically  a  renegade  to  his  flag — if  you  please,  false 
to  his  allegiance :  but  he  stands  awaiting  sentence 
at  the  bar  of  history  in  very  respectable  company — 
for  instance,  in  that  of  William  of  Orange,  known 
as  The  Silent.  Those  composing  it  were,  one  and 
all,  in  the  sense  referred  to,  false  to  their  oaths — for 
sworn. 

In  Virginia,  Lee  was  MacGregor ;  and,  where  Mac- 
Gregor  sits,  there  is  the  head  of  the  table. 

Into  Lee's  subsequent  career,  I  can  here  only  very 
briefly  enter ;  nor  shall  I  undertake  to  compare  him 
with  other  great  military  characters,  whether  contem 
poraneous  or  of  all  time.  Not  only  has  the  topic  been 
discussed  by  others1,  not  always  to  my  mind  with 
either  judgement  or  good  taste,  but  the  space  limitation 
here  again  confronts  me.  I  must  press  on.  Suffice  it 
for  me,  as  one  of  those  then  opposed  in  arms  to  Lee, 

1  Lord  Acton  pronounced  Lee  '  the  greatest  general  the  world 
has  ever  seen,  with  the  possible  exception  of  Napoleon  '.  Writing 
sixteen  years  after  the  occurrence,  he  used  the  expression  that  he 
rejoiced  in  a  certain  event  '  more  than  I  have  been  able  to  feel 
at  any  public  event  ever  since  I  broke  my  heart  over  the  surrender 
of  Lee '. 


142      A  GEEAT  HISTORIC  CHARACTER 

in  however  subordinate  a  capacity,  to  admit  at  once 
that,  as  a  leader,  he  conducted  operations  on  the  high 
est  plane.  Whether  acting  on  the  defensive  upon  the 
soil  of  his  native  State,  or  leading  his  army  into  the 
enemy's  country,  he  was  humane,  self-restrained,  and 
strictly  observant  of  the  most  advanced  rules  of  civi 
lized  warfare.  He  respected  the  non-combatant ;  nor 
did  he  ever  permit  the  wanton  destruction  of  private 
property. 

But  though  avoiding  any  critical  discussion,  I  will 
generally  say  that,  to  my  mind  and  in  my  judgement, 
Lee's  first  was  his  most  brilliant  campaign ;  indeed 
I  do  not  see  why  it  will  not  bear  comparison  with  the 
most  brilliant  of  historic  campaigns  under  the  greatest 
commanders.  It  was  in  July,  1862.  When  at  that 
time  suddenly  placed  in  command  of  a  large  army, 
face  to  face  with  an  enemy  of  greatly  superior  force, 
Lee  was  a  man  of  fifty-five ;  almost  exactly  the  age 
of  Marlborough  when  he  assumed  his  first  large  com 
mand  in  the  Blenheim  campaign.  Never  before  at  the 
head  of  any  considerable  force,  Lee  was  then  acting 
as  military  adviser  of  Jefferson  Davis,  President  of  the 
Confederacy.  In  those  days  the  present  elaborate 
general  staff  organizations  were  undreamed  of,  the 
traditions  and  organizations  of  the  Napoleonic  period 
and  the  Crimea  still  prevailing.  Himself  a  graduate 
of  the  national  military  academy,  and  not  without 
active  military  experience,  President  Davis  divined 
Lee's  capacity,  and  looked  to  him  largely  for  advice, 
and  the  confirmation,  or  otherwise,  of  his  own  con 
clusions.  Just  at  this  juncture  General  Joseph  E. 


AND  VAE  VICTIS  143 

Johnston,  in  command  of  the  Confederate  forces  de 
fending  Eichmond,  was  incapacitated  by  injuries 
received  in  battle,  and  Davis  at  once  designated  Lee 
to  succeed  him. 

When,  in  those  fierce  contesting  days  of  1862, 
Lee  thus,  while  the  battle  was  in  progress,  assumed 
command,  the  armies  of  the  Union — of  the  North  as 
it  was  called — were  pressing  hard  on  the  Confederate 
capital.  Though  they  did  not  realize  the  fact,  and 
immensely  exaggerated  the  number  and  equipment  of 
those  opposed  to  them,  they  were  to  their  enemy  at 
least  as  two  or  three  to  one :  but,  badly  commanded, 
they  were  operating  as  at  least  four  separate  organ 
izations,  advancing  by  different  lines  on  a  common 
objective,  while  yet  carefully  covering  Washington, 
whence  they  received  directions.  As  a  military 
situation,  it  was  open  to  criticism  at  every  point. 
With  what  then  ensued,  you  here  in  England  are  not 
unacquainted.  Colonel  Henderson's  Life  of '  Stonewall* 
Jackson  is  a  text-book  at  Sandhurst ;  and  Kobert  E. 
Lee's  name  is  almost  a  household  word  in  Great 
Britain.  Suffice  it  to  say  that,  knowing  the  country 
well  and  superbly  supported  by  his  lieutenants  and 
the  unsurpassed  fighting  material  of  which  his  army 
was  composed,  throwing  his  force  first  in  one  direc 
tion  and  then  in  another,  always  outnumbering  his 
antagonists  at  the  immediate  critical  point,  in  less 
than  sixty  days  from  his  taking  command  Lee  had 
completely  cleared  Virginia  of  its  enemies,  and  was 
himself  carrying  the  war  into  the  enemy's  country. 
Washington,  not  Eichmond,  was  in  danger  of  capture. 


A  GEEAT  HISTORIC  CHARACTEE 

It  was  a  great  military  achievement.  Taking  all  the 
circumstances  of  the  case  into  consideration,  I  know 
of  none  more  brilliant ;  though,  of  course,  many  have 
been  both  more  considerable,  and  some,  perhaps, 
more  dramatic.  In  effective  completeness,  however, 
it  will  compare  with  any ;  for  it  was  perfect  in  its 
kind.  Lee  had  everything  except  mere  numbers  in 
his  favour;  and  he  availed  himself  boldly  and  skil 
fully  of  his  advantages.  Napoleon  did  no  more  in 
Italy  in  1796 ;  or  Wellington  in  the  Peninsula  in 
1813. 

Of  Lee's  two  succeeding  campaigns,  that  of  Frede- 
ricksburg  in  the  closing  weeks  of  1862,  and  that  of 
Chancellorsville  in  the  April  following,  I  have  not  time 
to  speak  ;  nor  do  I  wish  to  talk,  or  even  think,  of  them. 
I  participated,  of  course  on  the  Union  side,  in  both ; 
and  their  memory  is  still  very  bitter  to  me.  It  recalls 
hardship,  failure,  and  the  useless  loss  of  precious 
lives.  The  Fredericksburg  folly  should  never  have 
been  entered  upon ;  the  campaign  of  Chancellorsville 
should  have  been  for  us  a  brilliant  success.  In  both 
cases  the  Union  army  was  wretchedly  handled ;  and 
Lee  proved  equal  to  the  occasion.  The  Army  of  the 
Potomac  sustained  two  severe  repulses,  involving 
terrible  loss  of  both  life  and  prestige. 

But  why  enlarge?  Comparisons  are  always  invi 
dious,  and  I  feel  no  disposition  here  to  institute  them : 
but  some  things  are  too  obvious  to  admit  of  denial. 
Almost  every  military  aphorism  is  as  a  matter  of 
course  attributed  to  Napoleon ;  and  so  Napoleon  is 
alleged  first  to  have  remarked  that  '  In  war  men  are 


AND  VAE  VICTIS  145 

nothing,  a  man  is  everything'.1  And,  as  formerly 
a  soldier  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac,  I  now  stand 
appalled  at  the  risk  I  unconsciously  ran  anterior  to 
July,  1863,  when  confronting  the  Army  of  Northern 
Virginia,  commanded  as  it  then  was  and  as  we  were. 
The  situation  was  in  fact  as  bad  with  us  in  the  Army 
of  the  Potomac  as  it  was  with  the  Confederates  in 
the  south-west.  There  the  unfortunate  Pemberton 
simply  was  not  in  the  same  class  as  Grant  and  Sher 
man,  to  whom  he  found  himself  opposed.  Kesults 
followed  accordingly.  Vicksburg  fell ;  the  Mississippi 
flowed  free  to  the  sea ;  the  Confederacy  was  cut  in 
twain.  So  in  Virginia,  Lee,  Jackson  and  Longstreet 
constituted  together  a  most  exceptional  combination. 
They  outclassed  McClellan  and  Burnside,  Pope  and 
Hooker,  in  quick  succession  our  commanders;  out 
classed  them  sometimes  terribly,  sometimes  ludi 
crously,  always  hopelessly  :  and  again  results  followed 
accordingly.  That  we  were  not  utterly  destroyed 
affords  a  marked  and,  for  us,  most  creditable  exception 
to  the  general  truth  of  Napoleon's  aphorism. 

Though  fifty  years  have  since  elapsed,  well  do  I 
remember  the  feeling  of  relief,  almost  of  exultation, 
I  individually  felt  when  one  April  day  the  rumour 
spread  through  our  crestfallen  camp  at  Acquia  Creek, 
opposite  Fredericksburg,  that  '  Stonewall '  Jackson 
was  dead — a  victim  of  wounds  received  in  the  battle 
which  had  just  been  fought ;  and,  by  us,  lost.  After 
all  it  had  been  a  victory ;  for  Jackson's  '  foot-cavalry ' 

1  '  A  la  guerre  les  homines  ne  sent  rien,  c'est  un  homme  qui 
est  tout.' 


146      A  GEEAT  HISTOKIC  CHAEACTER 

would  not  again  come  yelling  and  volleying  around  our 
uncovered  flank. 

The  Gettysburg  campaign  followed  close  on  the 
heels  of  that  of  Chancellorsville ;  it  opened  before 
Jackson  had  been  a  month  in  his  grave.  Gettysburg 
marked  the  turning-point  in  the  military  fate  of  the 
Confederacy.  From  that  day  (July  4,  1863)  its  star 
began  to  descend,  to  sink  for  ever  below  the  horizon 
just  twenty-one  months  later  (April  9,  1865).  That 
Gettysburg  campaign  is  burned  very  deep  into  my 
memory  as  an  active  participant  therein,  and  the 
views  I  entertain  of  it  are  not  in  all  respects  those 
generally  held ;  so  I  cannot  dismiss  it  with  mention 
only. 

Studied  in  the  light  of  results,  Lee's  action  in  that 
campaign  has  been  criticized :  his  crucial  attack  on 
Gettysburg's  third  day  has  been  pronounced  a  mur 
derous  persistence  in  a  misconception ;  and,  among 
Confederate  writers  especially,  the  effort  has  been  to 
relieve  him  of  responsibility  for  final  miscarriage, 
transferring  it  to  his  lieutenants.  As  a  result  reached 
from  participation  in  those  events  and  subsequent 
study  of  them,  briefly  let  me  say  I  concur  in  none  of 
these  conclusions.  Taking  the  necessary  chances 
incident  to  all  warfare  on  a  large  scale  into  considera 
tion,  the  Gettysburg  campaign  was  on  the  Confederate 
part  in  my  opinion  timely,  admirably  designed,  ener 
getically  executed,  and  brought  to  a  close  with  con 
summate  military  skill.  A  well-considered  offensive 
thrust  of  the  most  deadly  character,  intelligently 
aimed  at  the  opponent's  heart,  its  failure  was  of  the 


AND  VAE  VICTIS  H7 

narrowest ;  and  the  disaster  to  the  defeated  side 
which  that  failure  might  readily  have  involved  was 
no  less  skilfully  than  successfully  averted. 

I  cannot  here  and  now  enter  into  details.  But  I 
hold  that  credit,  and  the  consequent  measure  of 
applause,  in  the  outcome  of  that  campaign  belong  to 
Lee's  opponent  and  not  to  him.  All  the  chances 
were  in  Lee's  favour,  and  he  should  have  won  a  great 
victory  ;  while  Meade  should  have  sustained  a  decisive 
defeat.  As  it  was,  Meade  triumphantly  held  his 
ground ;  Lee  suffered  a  terrible  repulse.  His  deadly 
thrust  was  foiled  ;  his  campaign  was  a  failure. 

But,  so  far  as  Lee's  general  plan  of  operations,  and 
the  movements  which  culminated  in  the  battle  of 
Gettysburg,  were  concerned,  be  it  always  and  ever 
remembered,  a  leader  must,  in  war,  take  some  chances, 
and  mistakes  will  occur ;  but  the  mistakes  are  rarely, 
if  ever,  all  on  one  side.  They  tend  to  counterbalance 
each  other ;  and,  commanders  and  commanded  being 
at  all  equal,  not  unseldom  it  is  the  balance  of  miscon 
ceptions,  shortcomings,  miscarriages,  and  the  generally 
unforeseen,  and  indeed  unforeseeable,  which  tips  the 
scale  to  victory  or  defeat. 

In  the  Gettysburg  campaign — and  I  actually  parti 
cipated  in  it  from  its  opening  to  its  close — every 
personal  recollection  of  what  then  occurred,  as  well  as 
my  study  of  it  since,  lead  me  to  believe  that  in  its 
earlier  stages  the  preponderance  of  the  accidental  was 
distinctly  in  Lee's  favour.  On  any  fair  weighing  of 
chances,  he  should  have  won  a  decisive  victory ;  as 
matter  of  actual  outcome,  he  and  his  army  ought  to 


148      A  GEEAT  HISTOKIC  CHARACTER 

have  been  destroyed.     As  usual,  on   that  theatre  of 
war  at  that  time,  neither  result  came  about. 

First,  as  to  the  chapter  of  accidents — the  misconcep 
tions,  miscarriages  and  shortcomings.  If,  as  has  been 
alleged,  an  essential  portion  of  Lee's  force  was  at  one 
time  out  of  reach  and  touch,  and  if,  at  the  critical 
moment,  a  lieutenant  was  not  promptly  in  place  at 
a  given  hour,  on  the  Union  side  an  unforeseen  change 
of  supreme  command  went  into  effect  when  battle  was 
already  joined,  and  the  newly  appointed  commander 
had  no  organized  staff;  his  army  was  not  concen 
trated  ;  his  strongest  corps  was  over  thirty  miles  from 
the  point  of  conflict ;  and  the  two  corps  immediately 
engaged  should  have  been  destroyed  in  detail  before 
reinforcements  could  have  reached  them.  In  addition 
to  all  this — superadded  thereto — the  most  skilful  gen 
eral  and  perhaps  the  fiercest  fighter  on  the  Union  side 
was  killed  at  the  outset.  Later,  and  at  a  most  critical 
moment,  Meade's  line  of  battle  was  almost  fatally  dis 
ordered  by  the  misconception  of  a  corps  commander. 
The  chapter  of  accidents  thus  reads  all  in  Lee's  favour. 
But,  while  Lee  on  any  fair  weighing  of  chances  stands 
in  my  judgement  more  than  justified  both  in  his  con 
ception  of  the  campaign  and  in  every  material  strategic 
move  made  in  it,  he  none  the  less  fundamentally  mis 
conceived  the  situation,  with  consequences  which 
should  have  been  fatal  both  to  him  and  to  his  com 
mand.  Frederick  did  the  same  at  Kunersdorf ;  Napo 
leon  at  Waterloo.  In  the  first  place,  Lee  had  at  that 
time  supreme  confidence  in  his  command  ;  and  he  had 
sufficient  ground  therefor.  As  he  himself  then  wrote, 


AND  VAE  VICTIS  149 

1  There  never  were  such  men  in  any  army  before. 
They  will  go  anywhere  and  do  anything,  if  properly 
led.'  And,  for  myself,  I  do  not  think  the  estimate 
thus  expressed  was  exaggerated  ;  speaking  deliberately, 
having  faced  some  portions  of  the  Army  of  Northern 
Virginia  at  the  time,  and  having  reflected  much  on  the 
occurrences  of  that  momentous  period,  I  do  not  believe 
that  any  more  formidable  or  better  organized  and  ani 
mated  force  was  ever  set  in  motion  than  that  which 
Lee  led  across  the  Potomac  in  the  early  summer  of 
1863.  It  was  essentially  an  army  of  fighters — men 
who,  individually  or  in  the  mass,  could  be  depended 
on  for  any  feat  of  arms  in  the  power  of  mere  mortals 
to  accomplish.  They  would  blanch  at  no  danger. 
This  Lee  from  experience  knew.  He  had  tested 
them ;  they  had  implicit  confidence  in  him.  He  also 
thought  he  understood  his  opponent ;  for  he  had  faced 
him  recently  at  Chancellorsville.  Meade  had  not  yet 
succeeded  Hooker. 

The  disasters  which  had  befallen  the  Confederates 
in  the  south-west  in  the  spring  and  early  summer  of 
1863  had  to  find  compensation  in  the  east.  The  ex 
igencies  of  warfare  necessitated  it.  Some  risk  must 
be  incurred.  So  Lee  determined  to  assume  the  offen 
sive,  to  carry  the  war  into  the  enemy's  country.  Then 
came  the  rapid,  aggressive  move;  and  the  long, 
desperately  contested  struggle  of  Gettysburg,  cul 
minating  in  that  historic  charge  of  Pickett's  Virginia 
division.  Paradoxical  as  it  may  sound  in  view  of  the 
result,  that  charge — what  those  men  did — justified 
Lee.  True,  those  who  made  the  charge  did  not 


150      A  GKEAT  HISTORIC  CHARACTER 

accomplish  the  impossible  ;  but  towards  it  they  did 
all  that  mortal  men  could  do.  But  it  is  urged  that 
Lee  should  have  recognized  the  impossible  when  face 
to  face  with  it,  and  not  have  directed  brave  men  to 
lay  down  their  lives  in  the  vain  effort  to  accomplish 
what,  humanly  speaking,  could  not  be  done.  That 
is  true  ;  and,  as  Lee  is  said  to  have  once  remarked  in 
another  connexion,  '  Even  as  poor  a  soldier  as  I  am 
can  generally  discover  mistakes  after  it  is  all  over'. 
After  Gettysburg  was  over,  like  Frederick  at  Ku- 
nersdorf  and  Napoleon  at  Waterloo,  Lee  doubtless 
discovered  his  mistake.  It  was  a  very  simple  one  :  he 
undervalued  his  opponent.  The  temper  of  his  own 
weapon  he  knew ;  he  made  no  mistake  there.  His 
mistake  lay  in  his  estimate  of  his  antagonist :  but  that 
estimate  again  was  based  on  his  own  recent  experience 
elsewhere. 

On  the  other  hand,  from  the  day  I  rode  over  the 
field  of  Gettysburg  immediately  following  the  fight  to 
that  which  now  is,  I  have  fully  and  most  potently 
believed  that  only  some  disorganized  fragments  of 
Lee's  army  should  after  that  battle  have  found  their 
way  back  to  Virginia.  The  war  should  have  collapsed 
within  sixty  days  thereafter.  For  eighteen  hours  after 
the  repulse  of  Pickett's  division,  I  have  always  felt, 
and  now  feel,  the  fate  of  the  Army  of  Virginia  was  as 
much  in  General  Meade's  hands  as  was  the  fate  of  the 
army  led  by  Napoleon  in  the  hands  of  Blucher  on  the 
night  of  Waterloo.  As  an  aggressive  force,  the  Con 
federate  army  was  fought  out.  It  might  yet  put  forth 
a  fierce  defensive  effort ;  it  was  sure  to  die  game :  but 


AND  VAE  VICTIS  151 

it  was  impotent  for  attack.  Meade  had  one  entire 
corps — perhaps  his  best — the  Sixth,  commanded  by 
Sedgwick,  intact.  Held  in  reserve,  it  had  been 
divided  in  support  of  points  deemed  weak  in  the  line 
of  battle.  Its  reconcentration  under  its  proper  com 
mander  would  at  most,  however,  have  been  but  a 
matter  of  hours.  By  the  early  morn  of  the  morrow 
following  Pickett's  repulse,  Sedgwick  at  the  head  of 
a  reunited  command  could  have  been  pressing  hard 
on  the  heels  of  the  cavalry,  endangering  Lee's  line  of 
retreat.  The  true  counter-movement  for  the  fourth 
day  of  continuous  fighting  would  then  on  Meade's  part 
have  been  an  exact  reversal  of  Lee's  own  plan  of 
battle  for  the  third  day.  That  plan,  as  described  by 
Fitzhugh  Lee,  was  simple.  '  His  (Lee's)  purpose  was 
to  turn  the  enemy's  left  flank  with  his  First  Corps, 
and,  after  the  work  began  there,  to  demonstrate 
against  his  lines  with  the  others  in  order  to  prevent 
the  threatened  flank  from  being  reinforced ;  these 
demonstrations  to  be  converted  into  a  real  attack  as 
the  flanking  wave  of  battle  rolled  over  the  troops  in 
their  front.'  What  Lee  thus  proposed  for  Meade's 
army  on  the  third  day,  Meade  should  unquestionably 
have  returned  on  Lee's  army  upon  the  fourth  day. 
Sedgwick's  corps,  following  close  on  a  concentrated 
cavalry  advance,  should  then  have  assailed  Lee's  right 
and  rear.  I  once,  long  afterwards,  asked  a  leading 
Confederate  general l,  who  had  been  in  the  very  thick 
of  it  on  Gettysburg's  crucial  third  day,  what  would 

1  General  E.   P.   Alexander,   Chief  of  Artillery   of  the  corps 
commanded  by  General  Longstreet. 


152      A  GEEAT  HISTOEIC  CHAEACTEE 

have  been  the  outcome  had  Meade,  within  two  hours 
of  the  repulse  of  Pickett,  ordered  Sedgwick  to  get  his 
corps  together,  and,  as  soon  as  he  could  so  do,  to 
move  off  to  the  left,  occupying  Lee's  line  of  retreat. 
The  Confederate  right  being  thus  threatened,  a  general 
advance  would  have  been  in  order.  The  answer  I  re 
ceived  was  immediate :  '  Without  question  we  would 
have  been  destroyed.  We  all  that  night  fully  ex 
pected  it ;  and  could  not  understand  next  day  why  we 
were  unmolested.  My  ammunition' — for  he  was  an 
officer  of  artillery — l  would  have  sufficed  but  for  one 
short  day's  fighting  more.' 

But  in  all  this,  as  in  every  speculation  of  the  sort — 
and  the  history  of  warfare  is  replete  with  them — the 
1  if '  is  much  in  evidence  ;  as  much  in  evidence,  indeed, 
as  it  is  in  a  certain  familiar  Shakespearian  disquisition. 
I  here  introduce  what  I  have  said  on  this  topic  simply 
to  illustrate  what  may  be  described  as  the  balance  of 
miscarriages  inseparable  from  warfare.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  manner  in  which  Lee  met  disaster  at 
Gettysburg— the  combination  of  serene  courage  and 
consequent  skill  with  which  he  extricated  his  army 
from  its  critical  situation,  commands  admiration.  I 
would  here  say  nothing  depreciatory  of  General  Meade. 
He  was  an  accomplished  officer  as  well  as  a  brave 
soldier.  Placed  suddenly  in  a  most  trying  position — 
assigned  to  chief  command  when  battle  was  already 
joined — untried  in  his  new  sphere  of  action,  and  caught 
unprepared,  he  fought  at  Gettysburg  a  stubborn,  gallant 
fight.  A  good  soldier  and  a  skilful  commander,  a  man 
of  character,  after  he  assumed  command  of  the  Army 


AND  VAE  VICTIS  153 

of  the  Potomac,  though  confronted  by  its  old  op 
ponent,  serious  disaster  did  not  again  befall  it.  Sub 
sequently,  he  deserved  more  considerate  treatment 
than  he  received.  With  chances  at  the  beginning 
heavily  against  him,  he  saved  the  crucial  day :  none 
the  less,  as  I  have  already  pointed  out,  I  fully  believe 
that,  on  the  fourth  of  July  at  Gettysburg,  Meade 
had  but  firmly  to  close  his  hand,  and  the  Army  of 
Northern  Virginia  was  crushed.  Perhaps  under  all 
the  circumstances  it  was  too  much  to  have  expected 
of  him ;  certainly  it  was  not  done.  Then  Lee  in 
turn  did  avail  himself  of  his  opportunity.  Skilfully, 
proudly  though  sullenly,  preserving  an  unbroken 
front,  he  withdrew  to  Virginia.  That  withdrawal 
was  masterly. 

Of  the  subsequent  campaign,  Lee's  last — that  carried 
on  in  the  Virginian  Wilderness  and  before  and  around 
Eichmond  during  the  terrible  months  between  April 
1864  and  April  1865, — of  that  campaign  I  do  not, 
a  participant  in  it,  like  to  talk.  It  is  a  hideous  and 
heart-rending  memory.  I  will  only  say  that,  con 
tending,  with  ever  diminishing  resources  both  of  men 
and  munitions,  including  food  and  clothing,  against  a 
vastly  superior  force,  Lee  fully  sustained  the  great  repu 
tation  he  before  had  won.  Far  more  successful  than 
Napoleon  in  his  campaign  of  1813,  and  fully  as  much 
outnumbered,  striking  terrible  aggressive  blows  and 
then,  on  the  defensive,  foiling  every  counter-move  of  his 
unrelenting  opponent,  he  there  did  I  believe  all  that 
was  possible  with  such  means  as  were  at  his  command. 
Of  the  strategy  and  tactics  of  those  opposed  to  him  in 

1593  U 


154      A  GREAT  HISTORIC  CHARACTER 

that  titanic  grapple  I  have  expressed  myself  else 
where,  and  shall  not  here  speak.  Suffice  it  to  say, 
Lee  held  his  opponent  far  more  successfully  at  bay 
than  did  Napoleon  the  allies  before  and  at  Leipsic  in 
1813,  and  during  the  succeeding  months  which  wit 
nessed  the  closing  in  upon  him  at  Paris. 

Victrix  causa  deis  placuit,  sed  victum  Catoni. 

The  personal  equation  here  also  must  be  taken  into 
the  account — remains  always  to  be  reckoned  with. 
Lee,  it  must  be  remembered,  when,  at  Chancellors- 
ville,  Jackson  fell,  lost  his  right  arm  in  battle.  That 
loss  never  was  made  good.  Thereafter  he  remained 
maimed.  To  what  extent  results  would  have  been 
affected,  and  proved  other  than  history  has  recorded, 
had  i  Stonewall '  been  at  Lee's  side  in  the  Gettysburg 
campaign  and  in  the  Wilderness,  it  would  be  idle  to  con 
sider.  As  a  participant  on  the  ultimately  winning  side, 
I  can  only  say  I  am  now  glad  that  thunderbolt  of  war 
was  then  no  longer  at  Lee's  command.  I  can  bear 
witness  that  on  one  momentous  occasion  at  least,  had 
t  Stonewall '  been  there  in  place  of  him  who  succeeded  to 
'  Stonewall's '  command,  I  have  never  been  able  to  see 
how  a  great  and  apparently  irreparable  disaster  to  the 
Union  cause  could  have  been  averted.  But  I  cannot 
here  enter  into  details ;  the  incident  is  of  record. 
I  can  only  say  it  was  bad  enough  as  it  was ;  and  the 
individual  factor  absent ! 

Narrowly  escaping  destruction  at  Gettysburg,  my 
next  contention  is  that  Lee  and  the  Army  of  Northern 
Virginia  never  sustained  defeat.  Finally,  it  is  true, 
succumbing  to  exhaustion,  to  the  end  they  were  not 


AND  VAE  VICTIS  155 

overthrown  in  fight.  And  here  I  approach  a  large 
topic,  but  one  closely  interwoven  with  Lee's  military 
career ;  in  fact,  as  I  see  it,  the  explanation  of  what 
finally  occurred.  What  then  was  it  that  brought  about 
the  collapse  of  the  Army  of  Northern  Virginia,  and  the 
consequent  downfall  of  the  Confederacy  ?  The  litera 
ture  of  the  War  of  Secession  now  constitutes  a  library 
in  itself.  Especially  is  this  true  of  it  in  its  military 
aspects.  The  shelves  are  crowded  with  memoirs  and 
biographies  of  its  generals,  the  stories  of  its  campaigns, 
the  records  and  achievements  of  its  armies,  its  army 
corps,  and  its  regiments.  Yet  I  make  bold  to  say  that 
no  well  and  philosophically  considered  narrative  of  the 
struggle  has  yet  appeared ;  nor  has  any  satisfactory  or 
comprehensive  explanation  been  given  of  its  extra 
ordinary  and  unanticipated  outcome.  Let  me  briefly 
set  it  forth  as  I  see  it ;  only  by  so  doing  can  I  explain 
what  I  mean. 

Tersely  put,  dealing  only  with  outlines,  the  Southern 
community  in  1861  precipitated  a  conflict  on  the 
slavery  issue,  in  implicit  reliance  on  its  own  warlike 
capacity  and  resources,  the  extent  and  very  defensible 
character  of  its  territory,  and,  above  all,  on  its  com 
plete  control  of  cotton  as  the  great  staple  textile  fabric 
of  modern  civilization.  But  with  this  topic  I  have 
sufficiently  dealt  in  a  previous  lecture. 

As  to  a  maritime  blockade  of  the  South,  shutting  it 
up  to  die  of  inanition,  the  idea  was  believed  to  be 
chimerical.  That  no  such  feat  of  maritime  force  ever 
had  been  accomplished,  was  incontrovertible ;  nor  was 
it  deemed  possible  of  accomplishment  now.  I  have 


156       A  GEE  AT  HISTORIC  CHARACTER 

quoted  Confederate  utterances  of  high  authority  to 
this  effect.  To  '  talk  of  putting  up  a  wall  of  fire 
around  eight  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  square 
miles ',  situated  as  the  Confederacy  was,  with  its  twelve 
thousand  miles  of  sea-coast,  was  pronounced  too 
1  absurd '  for  serious  discussion.  But,  even  supposing 
it  were  possible  of  accomplishment,  the  doing  it 
would  but  the  more  effectively  play  the  Confederate 
game.  It  would  compel  intervention.  As  well  shut 
off  bread  from  the  manufacturing  centres  of  Europe 
as  stop  their  supply  of  cotton.  In  any  or  either 
event,  and  in  any  contingency  which  might  arise, 
the  victory  of  the  Confederacy  was  assured.  And 
this  theory  of  the  situation  and  its  outcome  was,  as 
I  have  already  pointed  out,  accepted  by  the  Southern 
community  as  indisputable. 

What  occurred  ?  In  each  case  that  which  had  been 
pronounced  impossible  of  occurrence.  On  land  the 
Confederacy  had  an  ample  force  of  men  ;  they  swarmed 
to  the  standards ;  and  no  better  or  more  reliable 
fighting  material  was  ever  gathered  together.  Well 
and  skilfully  marshalled,  the  Confederate  soldier  did 
on  the  march  and  in  battle  all  that  needed  to  be  done. 
Nor,  so  far  as  the  land  array  was  concerned,  were 
the  two  sides  unequally  matched.  As  Lee  with  his 
instinctive  military  sense  put  it,  even  in  the  closing 
stages  of  the  struggle  '  the  proportion  of  experienced 
troops  is  larger  in  our  army  than  in  that  of  the  enemy, 
while  his  numbers  exceed  our  own.'  And  in  warfare 
experience,  combined  with  an  advantageous  defensive, 
counts  for  a  great  deal.  This  was  so  throughout  the 


AND  VAE  VICTIS  157 

conflict ;  and  yet  the  Confederate  cause  sank  in  failure. 
It  did  so,  moreover,  to  the  complete  surprise  of  a  bewil 
dered  world.  How  was  this  wholly  unexpected  actual 
outcome  brought  about  ?  The  simple  answer  is  : — The 
Confederacy  collapsed  from  inanition  !  Suffering  such 
occasional  reverses  and  defeats  as  are  incidental  to  all 
warfare,  it  was  never  crushed  in  battle  or  on  the  field 
at  large  until  its  strength  was  sapped  away  by  want 
of  food.  It  died  of  exhaustion — starved  and  gasping ! 

Take  a  living  organism,  whatever  it  may  be,  place  it 
in  a  vessel  hermetically  sealed,  and  attach  to  that 
vessel  an  air-pump.  Set  that  pump  in  action ;  you 
know  what  follows.  It  is  needless  to  describe  it. 
No  matter  how  strong  or  fierce  or  self-confident  it 
may  be,  the  victim  dies  ;  growing  weaker  by  degrees, 
it  finally  collapses.  That  was  the  exact  condition  and 
fate  of  the  Confederacy.  What  had  been  confidently 
pronounced  impossible  was  done.  Steam  put  in  its 
work,  and  the  Confederacy  was  sealed  up  within 
itself  by  the  blockade.  Operations  in  the  field  then 
acted  as  an  air-pump,  the  exhausting  character  of 
which  could  not  be  exceeded.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  wellnigh  complete  exclusion  of  Southern  cotton 
from  the  manufacturing  centres  of  Europe  did  not 
cause  revolution  there,  nor  compel  intervention  here. 
Man's  foresight  once  more  came  to  grief.  As  is  apt 
to  be  the  case,  the  unexpected  occurred. 

Thus  the  two  decisive  defeats  of  the  Confederacy— 
those  which  really  brought  about  its  downfall   and 
compelled  Lee  to  surrender  the  army  under  his  com 
mand — were  inflicted  not  before  Vicksburg,  nor  yet  in 


158      A  GREAT  HISTORIC  CHARACTER 

Virginia,  not  in  the  field  at  all :  they  were  sustained, 
the  one,  almost  by  default,  on  the  ocean ;  the  other, 
most  fatal  of  all,  after  sharpest  struggle  in  Lancashire. 

The  supremacy  of  the  Union  on  the  ocean  was  in 
volved  in  the  issue  of  the  Lancashire  struggle ;  and 
upon  ocean  supremacy  depended  every  considerable 
land  operation  of  the  Union  armies  :  the  retention 
by  the  National  Government  of  New  Orleans,  when 
once  captured,  and  the  consequent  control  of  the  Mis 
sissippi  ;  Sherman's  great  march  to  the  sea ;  his  sub 
sequent  movement  through  the  Carolinas ;  Grant's 
operations  before  Petersburg;  generally,  the  main 
tenance  of  the  national  armies  in  the  field.  It  is  in 
fact  no  exaggeration  to  assert  that  both  the  conception 
and  the  carrying  out  of  every  large  Union  operation 
of  the  war,  without  a  single  exception,  hinged  and 
depended  on  complete  national  maritime  or  water 
supremacy.  It  is  equally  indisputable  that  the  struggle 
in  Lancashire  was  decisive  of  that  supremacy.  As 
Lee  himself  asserted  in  the  death  agony  of  the  Con 
federacy,  he  had  never  believed  it  could  in  the  long 
run  make  good  its  independence  '  unless  foreign 
powers  should,  directly  or  indirectly,  assist'  it  in  so 
doing.  Thus,  strange  as  it  sounds,  it  follows  as 
a  logical  consequence  that  Lee  and  his  Army  of 
Northern  Virginia  were  first  reduced  to  inanition, 
and  finally  compelled  to  succumb,  as  the  result  of 
events  on  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic,  largely 
stimulated  by  a  moral  impulse  they  were  powerless 
to  counteract. 

It  is  curious,  at  times  almost  comical,  to  trace  histo- 


AND  VAE  VICTIS  159 

rical  parallels.  Plutarch  is,  of  course,  the  standard 
exemplar  of  that  sort  of  treatment.  Among  other 
great  careers,  Plutarch,  as  every  college  boy  knows, 
tells  the  story  of  King  Pyrrhus,  the  Epirot.  A  great 
captain,  Pyrrhus  devised  a  military  formation  which 
his  opponents  could  not  successfully  face,  and  his 
career  was  consequently  one  of  victory.  But  at  last 
he  met  his  fate.  Assaulting  the  town  of  Argos,  he 
became  entangled  in  its  streets ;  and,  fighting  his  way 
out,  he  was  killed,  struck  down  by  a  tile  thrown  from 
a  house-top  by  an  Argive  woman.1  The  Confederacy, 
and  through  the  Confederacy  Lee,  underwent  a  not 
dissimilar  fate  ;  for,  as  an  historical  fact,  it  was  a 
missile  from  a  woman's  hand  which  was  decisive 
of  that  Lancashire  conflict,  and  so  doomed  the  Con 
federacy.  Though  one  was  a  fragment  of  roofing  and 
the  other  a  book,  the  missiles  were  equally  fatal. 

1  An  almost  identical  experience  is  recounted  in  scriptural 
narrative  as  having  fallen  to  the  lot  of  Abimelech,  son  of  Gideon, 
in  his  assault  upon  Thebez  : — 

51  But  there  was  a  strong  tower  within  the  city,  and  thither 
fled  all  the  men  and  women,  and  all  they  of  the  city,  and  shut  it 
to  them,  and  gat  them  up  to  the  top  of  the  tower. 

52  And  Abimelech  came  unto  the  tower,  and  fought  against  it, 
and  went  hard  unto  the  door  of  the  tower  to  burn  it  with  fire. 

53  And  a  certain  woman  cast   a  piece   of  a  millstone  upon 
Abimelech's  head,  and  all  to  brake  his  skull. 

54  Then  he  called  hastily  unto  the  young  man  his  armour- 
bearer,  and  said  unto  him,  Draw  thy  sword,  and  slay  me,  that 
men  say  not  of  me,  A  woman  slew  him.     And  his  young  man 
thrust  him  through,  and  he  died. 

55  And  when  the  men  of  Israel  saw  that  Abimelech  was  dead, 
they  departed  every  man  unto  his  place. 

Judges  ix. 


160      A  GREAT  HISTORIC  CHARACTER 

The  difference  was  of  time,  and  changed  conditions. 
There  elapsed  between  the  two  events  two  thousand 
one  hundred  and  thirty  years,  during  which  the  world 
had  moved  considerably. 

Foreign  intervention  being  thus  withheld,  and  the 
control  of  the  sea  by  the  Union  made  absolute,  the 
blockade  was  gradually  perfected.  The  fateful  process 
then  went  steadily  on.  Armies  might  be  resisted  in 
the  field  ;  the  working  of  the  air-pump  could  not  be 
stopped.  And,  clay  and  night,  season  after  season, 
the  air-pump  worked.  So  the  atmosphere  of  the 
Confederacy  became  more  and  more  attenuated ; 
respiration  sensibly  harder.  Air-hole  on  air-hole  was 
closed.  First,  New  Orleans  fell ;  then  Vicksburg, 
and  the  Mississippi  flowed  free;  next,  Sherman, 
securely  counting  on  the  control  of  the  sea  as  a  base  of 
new  operations  on  land,  penetrated  the  vitals  of  the 
Confederacy ;  then,  relying  still  on  maritime  co-opera 
tion,  he  pursued  his  almost  unopposed  way  through 
the  Carolinas  :  while  Grant,  with  his  base  secure  upon 
the  James  river  and  Fortress  Monroe,  beleagured 
Richmond.  Lee  with  his  Army  of  Northern  Virginia 
calmly,  but  watchfully  and  resolutely,  confronted  him. 
The  Confederate  lines  were  long  and  thin,  guarded  by 
poorly  clad  and  half-fed  men.  But,  veterans,  they 
held  their  assailants  firmly  at  bay.  As  Lee,  however, 
fully  realized,  it  was  only  a  question  of  time.  The 
working  of  the  air-pump  was  beyond  his  sphere  either 
of  influence  or  operations.  Nothing  could  stop  it. 

Viewed  in  a  half-century's  perspective,  the  situation 
was  simply  and  manifestly  impossible  of  continuance. 


AND  YAE  VICTIS  161 

To  it  there  could  be  but  one  outcome.  Wilmington, 
the  single  sea-port  of  North  Carolina,  was  also  the  last 
haven  remaining  to  the  blockade-runner.  Fort  Fisher, 
constructed  as  Wilmington's  harbour  defence,  com 
manded  its  approach.  On  January  16,  1865,  the 
telegraph  flashed  tidings  that,  as  the  result  of  combined 
naval  and  military  Union  operations,  Fort  Fisher  had 
fallen.  Its  fall  thus  closed  the  South's  single  remaining 
air-hole.  But  though  the  sealing  was  now  hermetical, 
the  air-pump  still  kept  on  in  its  deadly,  silent  work. 

Three  months  later  the  long-delayed  inevitable 
occurred.  The  collapse  came.  The  only  legitimate 
cause  of  surprise  is,  that  under  such  conditions  it 
should  have  been  so  long  deferred.  That  adversity 
is  the  test  of  man  is  a  commonplace ;  that  Lee  and  his 
Army  of  Northern  Virginia  were  during  the  long, 
dragging  winter  of  1864-5  most  direfully  subjected 
to  that  test,  need  not  here  be  said,  any  more  than  it 
is  needful  to  say  that  they  bore  the  test  manfully. 
But  the  handwriting  was  on  the  wall ;  the  men  were 
taxed  beyond  the  limits  of  human  endurance.  And 
Lee  knew  it.  '  Yesterday,  the  most  inclement  day  of 
the  winter,'  he  reported  on  February  8,  1865,  the 
right  wing  of  his  army  l  had  to  be  retained  in  line  of 
battle,  having  been  in  the  same  condition  the  two  pre 
vious  days  and  nights. . . .  Under  these  circumstances, 
heightened  by  assaults  and  fire  of  the  enemy,  some  of 
the  men  had  been  without  meat  for  three  days,  and 
all  were  suffering  from  reduced  rations  and  scant 
clothing,  exposure  to  battle,  cold,  hail,  and  sleet.  .  .  . 
The  physical  strength  of  the  men,  if  their  courage 


162      A  GREAT  HISTORIC  CHARACTER 

survives,  must  fail  under  this  treatment/  If  it  was  so 
with  the  men,  with  the  animals  it  was  even  worse. 
'  Our  cavalry ',  he  added,  i  has  to  be  dispersed  for 
want  of  forage/  Even  thus  Lee's  army  faced  an  oppo 
nent  vastly  superior  in  numbers,  whose  ranks  were 
being  constantly  replenished;  a  force  armed,  clothed, 
equipped,  fed  and  sheltered  as  no  similar  force  in  the 
world's  history  had  ever  been  before.  I  state  only  in 
disputable  facts.  Lee  proved  equal  to  even  this 
occasion.  Bearing  a  bold,  confident  front,  he  was 
serene  and  outwardly  calm ;  alert,  resourceful,  for 
midable  to  the  last,  individually  he  showed  no  sign  of 
weakness,  not  even  occasional  petulance.  Inspired  by 
his  example,  the  whole  South  seemed  to  lean  up  against 
him  in  implicit,  loving  reliance.  The  tribute  was 
superlative. 

Finally,  when  in  April  the  summons  to  conflict 
came,  the  Army  of  Northern  Virginia,  the  single 
remaining  considerable  organized  force  of  the  Con 
federacy,  seemed  to  stagger  to  its  feet;  and,  gaunt 
and  grim,  shivering  with  cold  and  emaciated  with 
hunger,  worn  down  by  hard  unceasing  attrition,  it 
faced  its  enemy,  formidable  still.  As  I  have  since 
studied  that  situation,  listened  to  the  accounts  of  Con 
federate  officers  active  in  the  closing  movements,  and 
read  the  letters  written  me  by  those  of  the  rank  and 
file,  it  has  seemed  as  if  Lee's  command  then  cohered 
and  moved  by  mere  force  of  habit.  Those  composing 
it  failed  to  realize  the  utter  hopelessness  of  the  situa 
tion — the  disparity  of  the  conflict.  I  am  sure  Jeffer 
son  Davis  failed  to  realize  it ;  so,  I  think,  in  less 


AND  VAE  VICTIS  163 

degree,  did  Lee.  They  talked,  for  instance,  of  re 
cruits,  and  of  a  levy  in  mass.  Lee  counselled  the 
arming  of  the  slaves ;  and  when,  after  Lee  had 
surrendered,  Davis  on  the  10th  of  April,  1865,  held 
his  last  war  conference  at  Greensboro',  he  was  still 
confident  he  would  in  a  few  weeks  have  another  army 
in  the  field,  and  did  not  hesitate  to  express  his  faith 
that  '  we  can  whip  the  enemy  yet,  if  our  people  will 
turn  out.'  I  have  often  pondered  over  what  Davis 
had  in  mind  when  he  ventured  this  opinion  :  or  what 
led  Lee  to  advocate  the  enlistment  of  negroes.  Both 
were  soldiers ;  and,  besides  being  great  in  his  pro 
fession,  Lee  was  more  familiar  than  any  other  man 
alive  with  actual  conditions  then  existing  in  the  Con 
federate  camps.  Both  Davis  and  Lee,  therefore,  must 
have  known  that,  in  those  final  stages  of  the  conflict, 
if  the  stamp  of  a  foot  upon  the  ground  would  have 
brought  a  million  men  into  the  field,  the  cause  of  the 
Confederacy  would  thereby  have  been  in  no  wise 
strengthened ;  on  the  contrary,  what  was  already  bad 
would  have  been  made  much  worse.  For,  to  be  effec 
tive  in  warfare,  men  must  be  fed  and  clothed  and 
armed.  Organized  in  commands,  they  must  have 
rations  as  well  as  ammunition,  commissary  and 
quartermaster  trains,  artillery  horses  and  forage.  In 
the  closing  months  of  the  Civil  War  both  Lee  and 
Davis  knew  perfectly  well  that  they  could  not  arm, 
nor  feed,  nor  clothe,  nor  transport  the  forces  already 
in  the  field;  they  were  without  money,  and  the 
soldiers  most  inadequately  supplied  with  arms,  cloth 
ing,  quartermaster  or  medical  supplies,  commissariat 


164      A  GREAT  HISTORIC  CHARACTER 

or  ammunition.  Notoriously,  those  then  on  the 
muster-rolls  were  going  home,  or  deserting  to  the 
enemy,  as  the  one  alternative  to  death  from  privation 
— hunger  and  cold.  If  then,  a  million,  or  even  only 
a  poor  hundred  thousand  fresh  recruits  had  in  answer 
to  the  summons  swarmed  to  the  lines  around  Rich 
mond,  how  would  it  have  bettered  the  situation? 
An  organized  army  is  a  mighty  consumer  of  food 
and  material ;  and  food  and  material  have  to  be  served 
out  to  it  every  day.  They  must  be  supplied  as  regu 
larly  as  the  sun  rises  and  sets.  And  the  organized 
resources  of  the  Confederacy  were  exhausted ;  its  ports 
were  in  the  hands  of  the  enemy  or  hermetically  sealed  ; 
its  granaries — Georgia  and  the  valley  of  the  She- 
nandoah — were  notoriously  devastated  and  desolate; 
its  lines  of  communication  and  supply  were  cut,  or  in 
the  hands  of  the  invader. 

Realizing  this,  Lee,  when  the  time  was  ripe,  rose  to 
the  full  height  of  the  great  occasion.  The  value  of 
Character  made  itself  felt.  The  service  Lee  now 
rendered  to  the  common  country,  the  obligation  under 
which  he  placed  his  fellow  countrymen,  whether  of 
the  North  or  South,  has  not,  I  think,  been  always 
appreciated ;  and  to  overstate  it  would  be  difficult. 

That  the  situation  in  the  Confederacy  was  at  that 
juncture  to  the  last  degree  critical  is  matter  of  history. 
Further  organized  resistance  was  impossible.  The 
means  for  it  did  not  exist ;  could  not  be  had.  Cut  off 
completely  from  the  outer  world,  the  South  had  con 
sumed  itself,  its  vitals  were  impaired.  The  single  alter 
native  to  surrender  was  disbandment  and  irregular 


AND  VAE  VICTIS  165 

warfare.  As  General  Joseph  E.  Johnston,  at  the  close 
of  the  war  esteemed,  next  to  Lee,  the  ablest  Confede 
rate  commander,  subsequently  wrote,  i  Without  the 
means  of  purchasing  supplies  of  any  kind,  or  procur 
ing  or  repairing  arms,  we  could  continue  the  war  only 
as  robbers  or  guerillas.5  But  that  it  should  be  so 
continued  was  wholly  possible ;  nay  more,  it  was  in 
the  line  of  precedent — it  had  been  done  before,  and 
more  than  once.  It  has  since  been  done,  notably  in 
South  Africa.  It  was,  moreover,  the  course  advocated 
by  many  Southern  participants  in  the  struggle  as  that 
proper  to  be  pursued ;  and  that  it  would  be  pursued 
was  accepted  as  of  course  by  all  foreign  observers  and 
by  the  organ  of  the  Confederacy  in  London.  '  A 
strenuous  resistance  and  not  surrender',  the  Index 
declared,  'was  the  unalterable  determination  of  the 
Confederate  authorities.' 

Indeed,  had  the  veil  over  the  immediate  future  then 
been  lifted,  the  outrages,  and  humiliations  worse  than 
outrage,  of  the  period  of  so-called  reconstruction  but 
actual  servile  domination,  now  to  ensue,  revealed 
itself,  no  room  for  doubt  exists  that  the  dread  alter 
native  would  have  been  adopted.  Even  as  it  was,  the 
scales  hung  trembling.  Anything  or  everything  was 
possible  ;  even  that  pistol  shot  of  the  crazed  theatrical 
fool  which  five  days  after  the  meeting  of  Grant  and 
Lee  at  Appomattox  so  irretrievably  complicated  a 
delicate  and  dangerous  situation.  None  the  less,  what 
Lee  and  Grant  had  done  on  April  9th  could  not  be 
wholly  undone  even  by  the  deed  in  Ford's  theatre  of 
April  14th.  Much  had  been  secured.  Of  that  April  9 


166      A  GEEAT  HISTORIC  CHARACTER 

and  what  then  occurred,  I  do  not  care  to  speak ;  for 
I  feel  I  could  not  speak  adequately  or  in  words  suffi 
ciently  simple.  But,  in  my  judgement,  there  is  not  in 
our  American  history  any  incident  more  creditable  to 
our  manhood,  or  so  indicative  of  a  racial  possession  of 
Character.  Marked  throughout  by  a  straightforward 
dignity  of  personal  bearing  and  responsibility  in  action, 
Appomattox  was  marred  by  no  touch  of  the  theatrical, 
no  effort  at  posturing.  I  know  not  to  which  of  the  two 
leaders,  there  face  to  face,  preference  should  be  given. 
They  were  thoroughly  typical ;  the  one  of  Illinois  and 
the  New  West,  the  other  of  Virginia  and  the  Old 
Dominion.  Grant  was  considerate  and  magnanimous — 
restrained  in  victory ;  Lee,  dignified  in  defeat,  carried 
himself  with  that  simple  fitness  which  compelled 
respect.  Verily,  'he  that  ruleth  his  spirit  is  better 
than  he  that  taketh  a  city  ! ' 

The  lead  that  day  given  by  Lee  proved  decisive  of 
the  course  to  be  pursued  by  his  Confederate  fellows  in 
arms.  At  first,  and  for  a  brief  space,  there  was  in  the 
councils  of  the  Southern  leaders  much  diversity  of 
opinion  as  to  what  should  or  could  be  done.  Calm 
and  dignified  in  presence  of  overwhelming  disaster, 
the  voice  of  Jefferson  Davis  was  that  of  Milton's 
'Scepter'd  king', — 'My  sentence  is  for  open  war!' 
Lee  was  not  there ;  none  the  less,  Lee,  absent,  pre 
vailed  over  Davis.  The  sober  second  thought  satisfied 
all  but  the  most  extreme  that  what  Lee  had  done  they 
best  might  do.  Thus  the  die  was  cast.  And  now, 
forty-eight  years  after  the  event,  it  is  appalling  to 
reflect  what  in  all  human  probability  would  have  re- 


AND  VAE  VICTIS  167 

suited  had  the  election  then  been  other  than  it  was — had 
Lee's  personality  and  character  not  intervened.  The 
struggle  had  lasted  four  full  years  ;  the  assassination 
of  Lincoln  was  as  oil  on  the  Union  fire.  With  a  mil 
lion  men,  inured  to  war,  on  the  national  muster  rolls, 
men  impatient  of  further  resistance,  accustomed  to 
licence  and  now  educated  up  to  the  belief  that  Wai- 
was  Hell,  and  that  the  best  way  to  bring  it  to 
a  close  was  to  intensify  Hell — with  such  a  force  as  this 
to  reckon  with,  made  more  reckless  in  brutality  by  the 
assassin's  senseless  shot,  the  Confederacy  need  have 
looked  for  no  consideration,  no  mercy.  Visited  by 
the  besom  of  destruction,  it  would  have  been  harried 
out  of  existence.  Fire  and  sword  sweeping  over  it, 
what  the  sword  spared  the  fire  would  have  consumed. 
Whether  such  an  outcome  of  a  prolonged  conflict — a 
conflict  prolonged  as  more  recently  was  that  in  South 
Africa — would  in  its  result  have  been  more  morally  in 
jurious  to  the  North  than  it  would  have  been  destructive 
materially  to  the  South,  is  not  now  to  be  considered.  It 
would,  however,  assuredly  have  come  about. 

From  that  crown  of  sorrows  Lee  saved  the  common 
country.  He  was  the  one  man  in  the  Confederacy 
who  could  exercise  decisive  influence.  It  was  the 
night  of  the  8th  of  April,  lacking  ten  days  only  of 
exactly  four  full  years — years  very  full  for  us  who  lived 
through  them — since  the  not  dissimilar  night  when 
Lee  had  paced  the  floor  at  Arlington.  Then,  he  was 
communing  with  himself  over  the  fateful  issue  be 
tween  State  and  Nation,  an  issue  forced  upon  him. 
A  decision  of  even  greater  import  was  now  to  be 


168      A  GREAT  HISTORIC  CHARACTER 

reached,  and  reached  by  him.  A  commander  of  the 
usual  cast  would  under  such  circumstances  have  sought 
advice — perhaps  support;  at  least,  a  divided  responsi 
bility.  Even  though  himself  by  nature  and  habit 
a  masterful  man  and  one  accustomed  to  direct, 
he  would  have  called  a  council,  and  hearkened  to  those 
composing  it.  This  Lee  did  not  do.  Singularly  self- 
poised,  he  sought  no  external  aid ;  but,  sitting  before 
his  bivouac  fire  at  Appomattox,  he  reviewed  the  situa 
tion.  Doing  so,  as  before  at  Arlington,  he  reached 
his  own  conclusion.  That  conclusion  he  himself  at 
the  time  expressed  in  words,  brief,  indeed,  but  vibrat 
ing  with  moral  triumph  :  '  The  question  is — Is  it  right 
to  surrender  this  army?  If  it  is  right,  then  I  will 
take  all  the  responsibility.'  The  conclusion  reached 
at  Arlington  in  the  April  night  of  1861  to  some  seems 
to  have  been  wrong,  inexcusable  even ;  all  concur  in 
that  reached  before  the  Appomattox  camp-fire  in  the 
April  vigils  of  1865.  Lee  then  a  second  time  decided  ; 
and  he  decided  right. 

His  work  was  done ;  but  from  failure  he  plucked 
triumph.  Thenceforth  Lee  wore  defeat  as  'twere 
a  laurel  crown.  A  few  days  later  a  small  group  of 
horsemen  appeared  in  the  morning  hours  on  the 
farther  side  of  the  Richmond  pontoons  across  the 
James.  By  some  strange  intuition  it  became  known 
that  General  Lee  was  of  the  party ;  and,  silent  and 
uncovered,  a  crowd — Virginians  all — gathered  along 
the  route  the  horsemen  would  take.  '  There  was  no 
excitement,  no  hurrahing;  but  as  the  great  chief 
passed,  a  deep,  loving  murmur,  greater  than  these, 


AND  VAE  VICTIS  169 

rose  from  the  very  hearts  of  the  crowd.  Taking  off 
his  hat,  and  simply  bowing  his  head,  the  man  great  in 
adversity  passed  silently  to  his  own  door ;  it  closed 
upon  him,  and  his  people  had  seen  him  for  the  last 
time  in  his  battle  harness.5 

From  the  day  that  he  affixed  his  signature  to  those 
9th  of  April  terms  of  surrender  submitted  to  him  by 
Grant  at  Appomattox  to  the  day  five  years  later  when 
he  last  drew  breath  at  Lexington,  Lee's  subsequent 
course  was  consistent.  In  his  case  there  was  no  vacil 
lation,  no  regretful  glances  backward  thrown. 

Five  years  of  life  and  active  usefulness  yet  re 
mained — years  in  my  judgement  most  creditable  to 
Lee,  the  most  useful  to  his  country  of  his  whole  life  • 
for,  during  them,  he  set  to  Virginia  and  his  own 
people  a  high  example,  an  example  of  lofty  character 
and  simple  dignified  bearing.  Uttering  no  complaints, 
entering  into  no  controversies,  he  was  as  one,  in 
suffering  all,  that  suffers  nothing.  Blood  and  judge 
ment  were  in  his  case  also  well  commingled ;  and  it 
so  fell  out  that  he  accepted  Fortune's  buffets  and  re 
wards  with  equal  thanks.  His  record  and  appearance 
during  those  final  years  are  pleasant  to  dwell  upon. 
They  reflect  honour  on  American  manhood.  Turning 
his  face  courageously  to  the  future,  he  uttered  no  word 
of  repining  over  the  past.  Yet  his  occupation  also  was 
gone — 

The  royal  banner,  and  all  quality, 

Pride,  pomp,  and  circumstance  of  glorious  war ! 

But  with  Lee  this  did  not  imply,  as  with  the  noble  Moor, 
Farewell  the  tranquil  mind !  farewell  content. 


170      A  GREAT  HISTORIC  CHARACTER 

Far  from  it ;  for  as  the  gates  closed  on  the  old  occupa 
tion,  they  opened  on  a  new.  And  it  was  an  occupa 
tion  through  which  he  gave  to  his  country,  north  and 
south,  a  priceless  gift. 

Indifferent  to  wealth,  he  was  scrupulous  as  respects 
those  money  dealings  a  carelessness  in  regard  to 
which  has  embittered  the  lives  of  so  many  public 
men,  as  not  infrequently  it  has  tarnished  their  fame. 
Lee's  whole  career  will  be  scrutinized  in  vain  for 
a  suggestion  even  of  the  sordid,  or  of  an  obligation  he 
failed  to  meet.  He  was  nothing  if  not  self-respecting. 
He  once  wrote  to  a  member  of  his  family,  '  "vile 
dross  "  has  never  been  a  drug  with  me/  yet  his  gene 
rosity  as  a  giver  from  his  narrow  means  was  limited 
only  by  his  resources.  Restricting  his  own  wants  to 
necessities,  he  contributed,  to  an  extent  which  excites 
surprise,  to  both  public  calls  and  private  needs.  But 
the  most  priceless  of  those  contributions  were  con 
tained  in  the  precepts  he  in  those  closing  years  incul 
cated,  and  in  the  unconscious  example  he  set. 

And  at  this  point  I  for  the  present  part  with  Lee ; 
but  in  so  doing  I  revert  to  Burke's  words :  *  Great 
men  are  the  guideposts  and  landmarks  in  the  State '. 
Is  Lee  entitled  to  be  numbered  among  the  American 
World-Great  ?  to  constitute  an  additional  star  in  that 
as  yet  not  numerous  galaxy  ?  General,  Educator,  Vir 
ginian,  by  some  of  my  countrymen  Lee  is  still  looked 
upon  as  a  traitor  and  denounced  as  a  renegade ;  by 
yet  others  he  is  venerated  and  loved — I  might  even 
say  idolized.  Here  in  Oxford,  that  ancient  seat  of  old- 
world  learning,  I,  an  American,  am  simply  presenting 


AND  VAE  VICTIS  171 

Lee's  credentials  on  which  to  base  his  possible  admis 
sion  among  the  World's  Great — one  more  American 
Immortal.  In  the  case  of  Lee,  as  in  that  of  Verulam, 
to  pass  finally  upon  this  is  a  function  reserved  to 
'  foreign  nations  and  the  next  ages '. 

My  course  of  lectures  now  draws  to  its  appointed 
end.  Before  closing  it,  however,  I  propose  to  de 
vote  the  few  minutes  remaining  to  another  subject, 
one  very  cognate  to  Lee  and  the  attitude  assumed  by 
him  at  the  close  of  the  war  in  which  he  bore  so  con 
spicuous  a  part.  And  here,  as  an  American  speaking 
under  the  auspices  of  a  British  University,  and  that 
University  Oxford,  I  am  conscious  of  entering  on 
somewhat  delicate,  perhaps  I  might  even  say  dan 
gerous  ground.  Nevertheless,  the  topic,  one  of  great 
historical  interest,  has,  also,  a  very  immediate  con 
nexion  with  a  process  of  historic  development  of 
which  I  treated  in  my  first  lecture — I  refer  of  course 
to  that  American  form  of  local  self-government  known 
by  us  as  State  Sovereignty. 

You  here  in  Great  Britain  have  for  years,  I  might 
even  say  for  generations,  been  wrestling  with  what 
you  call  the  Irish  Question ;  for,  as  we  in  America 
have  sufficient  cause  to  realize,  Ireland  has  through 
centuries  been  a  restless,  discontented,  and  at  times 
unruly  portion  of  the  United  Kingdom.  It  is  so  still ; 
and  you  are  now  considering,  and  propose  apparently 
soon  to  enact  into  your  constitutional  law  a  measure 
of  what  you  designate  Home  Eule.  Now,  at  the  outset, 
let  me  say  I  am  not  here  to  discuss  situations  I  at  best 


172      A  GEEAT  HISTOEIC  CHAEACTEE 

only  very  imperfectly  understand,  or  to  hold  myself 
out  as  one  either  qualified  or  disposed  to  instruct 
Englishmen,  much  less  Irishmen,  on  their  interests, 
their  policies,  or  the  principles  of  sound  polity  or  con 
stitutional  law  and  usage  involved  in  the  issues  now 
in  debate.  I  fully  appreciate  the  fact  that  institutions 
differ;  and  the  experience  of  one  community  may 
have  no  application  to  conditions  existing  in  another, 
even  though  the  two  may  speak  the  same  tongue  and 
trace  a  common  descent.  Moreover,  in  the  case  of 
nationalities  as  in  that  of  individuals,  the  pathological 
fact  holds  true  that  what  is  food  to  the  one  may  be 
poison  to  the  other.  All  this  I  premise  ;  and  so,  what 
I  have  now  to  say  may  or  may  not  be  applicable  to 
the  situation  by  which  you  find  yourselves  confronted  ; 
nevertheless  our  recent  experience  bears  some  resem 
blance  to  your  present  situation,  and  may  be  worth 
considering  in  connexion  therewith.  For  we  too  at 
the  close  of  our  Civil  War  found  ourselves  with  a  race 
issue  on  our  hands  and  a  section  of  our  common 
country  seething  with  discontent — in  a  word,  per 
plexed  in  the  extreme  by  a  condition  of  great  unrest. 

Our  War  of  Secession  closed  in  April,  1865,  with 
the  complete  submission  of  the  States  which  had  com 
posed  the  Confederacy.  Falling  by  the  hand  of  an 
assassin  in  the  very  hour  of  victory,  Abraham  Lincoln 
had  been  succeeded  in  the  presidential  chair  by  Andrew 
Johnson.  Verily,  a  most  unfortunate  substitution ! 
Of  neither  is  it  necessary  for  me  to  speak ;  but, 
historically,  there  followed  a  period  on  the  events  and 
outcome  of  which  Americans  do  not  like  to  dwell. 


AND  VAE  VICTIS  173 

Properly  and  intelligently  studied,  however,  it  conveys 
a  lesson — possibly  a  lesson  applicable  in  some  degree 
to  your  British  conditions  of  to-day. 

Because,  as  the  outcome  of  our  War  of  Secession, 
and  as  penalty  for  what  was  done  by  individuals 
in  the  course  thereof,  no  blood  flowed  on  the  scaffold 
and  no  confiscations  of  houses  or  lands  marked  the 
close  of  the  struggle,  it  has  always  been  assumed  by  us 
of  the  victorious  party  that  extreme,  indeed  unprece 
dented,  clemency  was  shown  to  the  vanquished  ;  and 
that,  subsequently,  they  had  no  good  ground  of  com 
plaint  or  sufficient  cause  for  restiveness.  That  history 
will  accord  assent  to  this  somewhat  self-complacent 
conviction  is  open  to  question.  On  the  contrary,  it 
may  not  unfairly  be  doubted  whether  a  people  prostrate 
after  civil  conflict  has  often  received  severer  measure 
than  was  dealt  out  to  the  so-called  reconstructed  Con 
federate  States  during  the  years  immediately  succeed 
ing  the  close  of  strife.  Adam  Smith  somewhere  defined 
rebels  and  heretics  as  '  those  unlucky  persons  who, 
when  things  have  come  to  a  certain  degree  of  violence, 
have  the  misfortune  to  be  of  the  weaker  party.' 
Spoliation  and  physical  suffering  have  immemorially 
been  their  lot.  The  Confederate,  it  is  true,  when  he 
ceased  to  resist,  escaped  this  visitation  in  its  usual  and 
time-approved  form.  Nevertheless,  he  was  by  no 
means  exempt  from  it.  In  the  matter  of  confiscation, 
it  has  been  computed  that  the  freeing  of  the  slaves  by 
act  of  war  swept  out  of  existence  property  valued 
at  some  four  hundred  millions  sterling  ;  while,  over  and 
above  this,  a  system  of  simultaneous  reconstruction 


174      A  GREAT  HISTORIC  CHARACTER 

subjected  the  disfranchised  master  to  the  rule  of  the 
enfranchised  bondsman.  For  a  community  conspi 
cuously  masterful,  and  notoriously  quick  to  resent 
affront,  to  be  thus  placed  by  alien  force  under  the  civil 
rule  of  those  of  a  different  and  distinctly  inferior  race, 
only  lately  their  bondsmen  and  property,  is  not 
physical  torment,  it  is  true,  but  that  it  is  mild  or 
considerate  treatment  can  hardly  be  contended.  Yet 
this — slave  confiscation  and  reconstruction  under 
African  rule — was  the  war  penalty  imposed  on  the 
States  of  the  Confederacy.  That  the  policy  inspired 
at  the  time  a  feeling  of  bitter  resentment  in  the  South 
was  no  cause  for  wonder.  Upon  it  time  has  already 
recorded  a  verdict.  Following  the  high  precedent  set 
at  Appomattox,  it  was  distinctly  unworthy.  Conceived 
in  passion,  it  ignored  both  science  and  the  philosophy 
of  statesmanship ;  worse  yet,  it  was  ungenerous. 
Lee,  for  instance,  again  setting  the  example,  applied 
formally  for  amnesty  and  a  restoration  of  civil  rights 
within  two  months  of  his  surrender.  His  application 
was  silently  ignored ;  while  he  died  '  a  prisoner  on 
parole ',  the  suffrage  denied  him  was  conferred  on  his 
manumitted  slaves.  Verily,  it  was  not  alone  '  the 
base  Judian '  of  the  olden  time  who  '  threw  a  pearl 
away  richer  than  all  his  tribe  ! ' 

The  course  thus  adopted  led  to  its  natural  results  - 
a  deep  feeling  of  wrong,  of  deprivation  and  resentment 
pervaded  the  entire  region  which  had  constituted  the 
Confederacy.  It  manifested  itself  in  a  spirit  of  rest 
lessness,  in  acts  of  violence,  and  in  outrages  on  indivi 
duals.  This  was  only  some  forty  years  ago;  to-day 


AND  VAE  VICTIS  175 

peace,  concord,  and  good-fellowship  reign  throughout 
the  common  country.  Slavery  has  ceased  to  exist ; 
the  Lost  Cause  is  a  cherished  memory — a  sentiment : 
there  is  no  more  loyal  and  contented  portion  of  the 
Union  than  those  States  which  fifty  years  back  consti 
tuted  the  Confederacy.  Through  what  means  was 
this  extraordinary  transmutation  worked  ?  By  what 
process  was  it  brought  about  ? 

Strange  indeed  as  it  sounds,  the  remedy  for  the  ills 
consequent  to  the  war  was  found  in  a  recourse  to  the 
system  which  had  caused  it.  As  I  endeavoured  to 
point  out  in  the  first  lecture  of  my  course,  the  prin 
ciple  of  State  Sovereignty  applied  in  its  extreme  form 
in  practice  led  to  the  trouble ;  but,  fifteen  years  later, 
that  same  principle  of  State  Sovereignty  in  its  proper 
form,  now  known  as  Local  Self-Government,  or,  in 
other  words,  Home  Eule,  brought  to  a  close  the  unrest 
and  disturbance  which  naturally  ensued  from  the 
strife.  Operating  as  a  charm,  it  worked  a  miracle. 

In  this  result,  historically  complete  in  our  case,  is 
there  a  lesson  beneficially  to  be  studied  by  Great 
Britain  in  disposing  of  the  issues  long  and  still  con 
fronting  it  in  Ireland  ?  I  do  not  know  ;  nor  would  it 
be  for  me  to  express  an  opinion  on  that  head  did  I 
hold  one.  But,  of  course,  it  would  at  once  be  objected 
that  with  us  no  racial  question  embittered  the  debate, 
or  was  involved  in  the  solution  of  the  problem — no 
Celt  was  arrayed  against  Saxon.  Perhaps  not ;  but, 
on  the  other  hand,  evidence  of  eminent  foreign 
witnesses  stands  recorded — among  others  that  of 
Lord  Wolseley,  and  that  of  Eussell,  your  Times 


176      A  GREAT  HISTORIC  CHARACTER 

Crimean  War  correspondent,  both  speaking  from  careful 
personal  observation — that  the  hate  of  Celt  to  Saxon, 
and  the  contempt  of  Saxon  for  Celt,  simply  paled  and 
grew  expressionless  when  compared  with  the  con 
tempt  and  hate  felt  by  the  Southron  towards  the 
Yankee  anterior  to  our  Civil  War  and  while  it 
was  in  progress.  No  Houyhnhnms  ever  looked  on 
Yahoo  with  greater  aversion  ;  better,  far  better  death 
than  further  contamination  through  political  associa 
tion.  This  was  only  fifty  years  since ;  it  is  all  over 
now,  ancient  and  forgotten  history;  even  discredited 
as  such,  pronounced  unveracious !  Yet  it  is  suscept 
ible  of  proof. 

But  again  it  will  obviously  be  objected  that  we  of 
the  North  did  not  have  in  the  Confederacy  a  colony, 
settlement,  or  community  of  our  own  people  whom  it 
would  be  a  baseness  to  desert — in  fact,  a  Southern 
Ulster.  But  this  again  is  hardly  so— we  did  have 
such  a  community,  and  it  numbered  millions ;  the 
Africans,  once  slaves,  we  had  emancipated  and  were 
in  honour  bound  to  protect.  And  this  argument  was 
used  to  its  full  extent — passionately  even,  and  for 
a  time  effectively,  in  opposition  to  the  growing  senti 
ment  in  favour  of  local  self-government,  a  recurrence 
to  State  Sovereignty.  None  the  less,  the  thing  ulti 
mately  came  about ;  wearied  with  unrest,  complete 
Home  Rule  was  in  1877,  twelve  years  after  the  close 
of  the  war,  conceded  to  South  Carolina,  the  prolific 
mother  of  discord,  and  last  of  the  Confederacy  to 
have  statehood  restored  to  it. 

What  resulted?     Every  political  issue,  every  step 


AND  VAE  VICTIS  177 

in  the  process  of  political  evolution,  be  the  same 
upward  or  downward,  is  a  question  of  pro  and  con, 
a  balancing  of  advantages.  Sometimes,  and  not  in 
frequently  as  we  all  know,  it  of  necessity  becomes 
a  balancing  of  public  and  general  good  against  private 
hardship  and  individual  wrong.  As  an  abstract  pro 
position,  however,  subject  of  course  to  proper  limita 
tions,  the  general  public  good  is  the  end  to  be  kept  in 
view.  Applying  now  this  principle  to  the  concrete 
case  of  the  emancipated  African — our  Ulster — there 
is  no  question  he  suffered  hardship  when  Home  Kule 
was  restored  to  the  States  once  constituting  the  Con 
federacy.  Deprived  of  the  franchise  in  open  disregard 
of  the  fundamental  law  enacted  for  his  protection  in 
it,  throughout  large  sections  of  the  common  country 
he  was  not,  nor  is  he  now,  practically  the  equal  of  the 
white  in  presence  of  the  law.  I  state  the  case  to  its 
full  extent,  and  in  the  baldest  way.  But,  on  the  other 
hand,  general  peace,  goodwill  and  loyalty  were  re 
stored ;  throughout  the  land  unrest  ceased.  Where 
under  such  circumstances  do  we  look  for  the  balance 
in  the  weighing  of  the  pros  and  cons  ? 

But  on  this  head  I  wish  to  be  more  than  fair ;  so  I 
will  state  the  Ulster  argument,  the  wanton — if  you 
desire  so  to  stigmatize  it — abandonment  to  a  cruel 
oppressor  of  those  we  were  bound  to  protect.  As 
a  nation  we  were  under  the  deepest  obligations  to  the 
Afro-American.  I  do  not  care  again  to  summon  from 
his  forgotten  grave  Mr.  Peacock,  once  member  of  Par 
liament  for  North  Essex,  with  his  confident  visions  of 
Jacqueries  and  massacres  of  Cawnpore  surely  to  result 


1593 


178      A  GREAT  HISTORIC  CHARACTER 

from  any  attempt  to  make  effective  Lincoln's  Pro 
clamation  of  Emancipation.  A  very  foolish  man,  let 
him  and  the  many  who  talked  as  he  talked  rest  in 
their  wonted  oblivion.  To  exhume  and  gibbet  them 
now  would  be  ungenerous ;  almost  cruel,  it  savours  of 
the  ghoulish,  The  plain  historic  truth,  however,  is 
that  African  slavery,  as  it  existed  in  the  United  States 
anterior  to  1862,  an  evil  institution  at  best,  yet  con 
stituted  a  mild  form  of  servitude,  as  servitude  then 
existed  and  immemorially  had  almost  everywhere 
existed.  And  this  was  incontrovertibly  proven  by 
the  course  of  events  subsequent  to  the  issue  of  the 
Proclamation.  Before  1862,  it  was  confidently  be 
lieved  that  any  open  social  agitation  within,  or  violent 
disturbance  from  without,  would  inevitably  lead  to 
a  Southern  servile  insurrection.  As  I  have  already 
elsewhere  shown,  the  Proclamation  when  first  issued 
was  denounced  almost  universally  and  in  no  measured 
terms.  It  was  stigmatized  as  a  measure  unwarranted 
in  warfare.  From  its  practical  operation  unimagin 
able  horrors  would  surely  ensue. 

What  actually  occurred  is  now  historic.  The  confi 
dent  anticipations  of  our  English  brethren  were,  not 
for  the  first  time,  negatived  ;  nor  is  there  any  page  in 
our  American  record  more  creditable  to  those  con 
cerned,  than  the  attitude  held  by  the  African  during 
the  fierce  internecine  struggle  which  prevailed  between 
April,  1861,  and  April,  1865.  In  it  there  is  scarcely 
a  trace,  if  indeed  there  is  any  trace  at  all,  of  such  a  con 
dition  of  affairs  as  had  developed  in  the  Antilles  in  1790 
and  iii  Hindustan  in  1850.  The  attitude  of  the  African 


AND  VAE  VICTIS  179 

towards  his  Confederate  owner  was  submissive  and 
kindly.  Although  the  armed  and  masterful  domestic 
protector  was  at  the  front  and  engaged  in  deadly,  all- 
absorbing  conflict,  yet  the  women  and  children  of  the 
Southern  plantation,  with  unbarred  doors,  slept  free 
from  apprehension,  much  more  from  molestation. 
This  record  certainly  entitled  the  emancipated  bonds 
man  to  much  consideration  at  the  hands  of  those 
who  had  emancipated  him.  An  obligation  had  been 
assumed.  Yet  it  is  an  undeniable  historical  fact  that 
before  the  memories  of  the  Civil  War  had  yet  ceased 
to  be  vivid,  the  emancipated  Afro- American  was,  under 
the  operation  of  a  restored  State  Sovereignty — as  you 
would  call  it,  Home  Rule — left  to  the  far  from  tender 
mercies  of  his  quondam  owner.  It  certainly  looked 
bad.  The  possible  outcome  of  such  a  proceeding  was 
foreseen,  and  to  a  very  considerable  extent  it  came 
about.  Yet,  in  the  not  remote  close  the  Afro- American 
himself  was  greatly  benefited.  Ceasing  to  be  a  bone 
of  contention  and  an  object  of  political  dislike — in 
a  word,  a  scape-goat — he  shared  not  least  of  all  in  the 
results  of  a  restored  good  feeling.  In  other  words, 
left  alone  he  found  his  place,  and,  in  a  measure, 
learned  to  protect  himself.  The  problem  of  the 
advance  and  present  condition  of  those  of  the  African 
race  in  what  was  once  their  land  of  bondage  is  with 
us  in  America  much  debated  and  involved  in  doubt. 
Into  it,  though  most  interesting,  I  do  not  propose 
here  to  enter.  It  is  unquestionably  one  of  the 
numerous  great  issues,  as  yet  only  partially  solved 
and  not  become  historical,  resulting  from  the  outcome 


180    A  GREAT  HISTORIC  CHARACTER,  ETC. 

of  our  War  of  Secession.  On  one  point,  however,  no 
question  remains :  it  has  passed  out  of  the  forum  of 
political  discussion.  There  is  an  ancient  and  not 
altogether  savoury  precept  as  to  the  cure  to  be  attained 
by  the  ministering  to  a  patient  of  a  hair  of  the  dog 
that  bit  him ;  and  so  in  America,  looking  fifty  years 
later  at  the  ultimate  solution  of  the  troubles  incident 
to  the  outcome  of  our  civil  strife —and  they  were  many 
and  great — no  question  exists,  North  or  South,  among 
white  or  black  as  to  the  balance  of  advantage  or  dis 
advantage  resulting  from  the  restoration  after  the 
close  of  our  contest  of  Home  Rule,  under  the  guise  of 
a  limited  State  Sovereignty,  to  the  several  communities 
once  composing  the  Confederate  States  of  America. 
In  all  the  United  States  not  one  man,  I  make  bold  to 
assert,  could  be  found  gravely  and  dispassionately 
to  advocate  a  recurrence  to  the  policy  of  force  and 
repression  to  which  a  mistaken  recourse  was  had 
during  the  brief  and  discredited  decennium  between 
1866  and  1876. 

Is  it  not  within  the  bounds  of  possibility  that, 
intelligently  observed  and  dispassionately  studied, 
there  might  here  again  be  found  for  Great  Britain 
of  to-day  a  suggestive  moral  derivable  from  trans- 
Atlantic  historical  solidarity? 


INDEX 


Abimelech,  death  of,  159 11. 

Achaian  league,  36. 

Acton,  John  Emerich  Ward  Dai- 
berg,  Baron,  on  Lee,  141. 

Adams,  Charles  Francis,  self-com 
mand  as  American  Minister,  18  ; 
anxieties,  102,  104. 

Air-pump,  blockade  as,  157,  160. 

Albert,  Francis  Charles  Augustus 
Emmanuel,  Prince  Consort,  fear 
of  Democracy,  22. 

Alexander,  E.  P.,  151. 

Alien  and  sedition  laws.  41. 

Allegiance,  46  ;  Lee  and,  136. 

America,  Burke  on,  33  ;  celebrities, 
134. 

Appomattox.  32 ;  surrender  of  Lee, 
165. 

Arbitration,  Geneva,  121. 

Argyll,  Duke  of,  18,  78 

Armada,  Spanish,  16. 

Army,  Southern,  156  ;  of  Virginia, 
last  stand,  161. 

Articles  of  Confederation,  39. 

Ash  worth,  Henry,  on  cost  of  cotton, 
123. 

Asia,  cotton  of,  90,  122. 

Bacon,  Francis,  Lord,  171. 

Bank  of  England  and  cotton,  66. 

Bathurst,  Henry,  Burke's  vision, 
33. 

Bentinck,  G.  W.,  on  Democracy,  109. 

Beresford-Hope,  Alexander  James, 
on  Proclamation  of  Emancipa 
tion,  108. 

Bernhardi,  Friedrich  von,  on  Eng 
lish  policy  in  American  War,  57, 
112,117. 

Blackburn,  cotton  famine,  89. 

Blackwootfa  Edinburgh  Magazine, 
on  Conservatism,  21 ;  on  Ameri 
can  characteristic,  126. 

Blockade  of  South,  believed  impos 
sible,  64;  and  cotton,  67,  88; 
effective,  155. 

Bright,  John,  Democrat,  22;  sup 


ports  the  north,  70,  77,  84 ;  influ 
ence,  78  ;  prophecy,  88 ;  Procla 
mation  of  Emancipation,  111. 

Brougham,  Henry,  Lord,  119. 

Browning,  Robert,  84. 

Bryan,  William  Jennings,  28. 

Bryce,  James,  on  American  War  of 
Secession,  10. 

Burke,  Edmund,  vision  of  America, 
33  ;  on  great  men,  133. 

Burnside,  Ambrose  Everett,  21, 145. 

Cabinet,  British,  meeting  on  medi 
ation,  99,  103,  107 ;  collectivity. 
104. 

California,  legislation  against  Asi 
atics,  27,  51. 

Carlyle,  Thomas,  119. 

Chancellorsville,  144. 

Charles  T,  30. 

Chatham,  Earl  of,  36. 

Chattel-humanity,  end  of,  14. 

Churchill,  John,  Duke  of  Marl- 
borough,  142. 

Citizenship,  46,  53. 

Cobden,  Richard,  78,  92 ;  on  Lanca 
shire,  95;  assurance  against  in 
tervention,  112. 

Coleridge,  John  Taylor,  Great  Bri 
tain  in  American  War  of  Seces 
sion,  18. 

Collectivism,  15. 

Colonies  discredited,  76. 

Common  law,  46. 

Compromise  in  Federal  Constitu 
tion,  38. 

Confederacy,  Southern,  collapse  of, 
157. 

Confederation,  New  England,  31. 

Conservatism,  reaction  to,  in  Great 
Britain,  21. 

Constitution,  United  States,  fram 
ing  of,  37  ;  sovereignty  under,  43. 

Cooper,  Anthony  Ashley,  Earl  of 
Shaftesbury,  83. 

Cotton,  supremacy  of,  65,  97,  124 ; 
and  blockade,  67  ;  crisis,  87,  100, 


182 


INDEX 


122;    American  crop,  1860,  88; 
Asiatic,  90 ;  prices,  91,  122. 
Crimea,  War  of  the,  15. 

Daily    Neivs   on    Proclamation   of 

Emancipation,  111. 
Darwin,  Charles,  79. 
Davis,  Jefferson,    142 ;    desires   to 

continue  war,  163,  166. 
Declaration  of  Independence,  36. 
Delane,  John  Thacleus,  75. 
De  Leon,  T.  C.,  67. 
Democracy,  movement  toward,  14 ; 

collapse  of,  21 ;  fear  of,  72,  109  ; 

training,  127. 
Derby,  Earl  of,  92. 
Dickens,  Charles,  72. 
Disraeli,  Benjamin,  Earl  of  Bea- 

consfield,  18,  81 ;  on  colonies,  76. 
Drake,  Sir  Francis,  16. 
Dred,  Mrs.  Stowe's,  83. 

Fisher,  Fort,  161. 

Forster,  William  Edward,_78. 

France,  American  possessions,  76; 

mediation,  99. 
Franklin,  Benjamin,  36. 
Fredericksburg,  144. 

Geneva,  arbitration,  121. 

Geon/e  Grincold,  relief  ship,  95. 

Gettysburg  campaign,  146. 

Gibson,  Thomas  Milner,  78. 

Gladstone,  William  Ewart,  93;  on 
American  Union,  62,  116;  medi 
ation,  101, 117;  Newcastle  speech, 
104,  128  ;  distrust  of  Palmerston, 
105;  after  the  war,  115;  utter 
ance  remembered,  118;  Treaty 
of  Washington,  121. 

Grant,  Ulysses  Simpson,  145,  158; 
at  A.ppomattox,  166. 

Granville,  George  Leveson-Gower, 
Earl,  102;  on  Gladstone  and 
Palmerston,  105. 

Great  Britain,  opinion  on  American 
War,  11,  18,  58,  69,  71;  on  De 
mocracy,  21,  Great  Rebellion,  29 ; 
Bernhardi  on,  57. 

Griswold,  George,  95. 

Guns,  breechloading  and  magazine, 
16. 

Hammond,  James  Henry,  power  of 


South,    63;    on    blockade,    64; 

cotton  supremacy,  66. 
History  as  a  science,  114. 
Holmes,  Oliver  Wendell,  138. 
Home  Rule  in  Ireland,  171. 
Hooker,  Joseph,  145,  149. 
Hughes,  Thomas,  78. 
Hyde,  Edward,  Earl  of  Clarendon, 

30. 

Index,  on  cotton  crisis,  93  ;  Procla 
mation  of  Emancipation,  109  ; 
no  surrender,  165. 

India,  cotton  fortunes,  122. 

Intervention,  proposed  French,  77, 
127  ;  Palmerston,  99. 

Ireland,  Home  Rule  in,  171. 

Jackson, Thomas  Jonathan  ('Stone 
wall'),  143,  145,  154. 

Japan,  legislation  of  California,  27. 

Jefferson,  Thomas,  41,  45. 

Johnson,  Andrew,  172. 

Johnston,  Joseph  Eccleston,  142, 
165. 

Kentucky  Resolutions,  1798,  41, 
139. 

Lancashire,  68,  70,  158 ;  cotton 
supply,  89;  labour  in,  91 ;  patient 
endurance,  93  ;  relief  returns,  96. 

Leadership  in  War  of  Indepen 
dence,  36. 

Lee,  Henry,  and  Virginia,  139. 

Lee,  Robert  Edward,  greatness  of, 
134,  170;  charges  against,  135, 
138  ;  State  influence,  137  ;  choice 
to  follow  State,  140;  as  general, 
142  ;  Gettysburg  campaign,  146  ; 
confidence  in  army,  149 ;  final 
campaign,  153,  160 ;  last  stand, 
161 ;  to  arm  slaves,  163  ;  surren 
ders,  166 ;  after  the  war,  168  ;  in 
difference  to  wealth,  170;  denied 
suffrage,  174. 

Lepanto,  battle  of,  16. 

Lewis,  Sir  George  Cornewall,  18  ; 
reply  to  Gladstone,  106. 

Lincoln,  Abraham,  127;  Procla 
mation  of  Emancipation,  14,  19, 
108  ;  Time*  on,  74  ;  assassination, 
165. 

Long  Parliament,  30. 

Longstreet,  James,  145. 

Louisiana,  sale  by  France,  76. 


INDEX 


183 


McClellan,  George  Bhnton,  21, 145. 
Manchester  school,  76. 
Massachusetts,  Constitution  of,  36  ; 

Texas,  42. 
Meade,  George  Gordon,  147,  149, 

152. 

Mediation,  proposed,  100. 
Merrimac,  15. 
Mill,  John  Stuart,  78 ;  on  War  of 

Secession,  19. 

Mississippi,  control  of,  158. 
Monitor,  16. 
Moore,  John  Bassett,  53. 

Napoleon  I,  military  aphorism, 
144. 

Napoleon  III,  69 ;  favours  South, 
75  ;  American  ambitions,  76  ;  in 
tervention  in  American  war,  77, 
100. 

Nationality,  American,  29 ;  not 
sovereign,  38 ;  historical  deve 
lopment,  44. 

Navy,  in  War  of  Secession,  15. 

New  England  Confederation,  1643. 
31 ;  and  embargo,  41. 

New  Orleans,  158. 

North,  the,  and  nationality,  49. 

Northcote,  Sir  Stafford,  18. 

Northumberland  on  Democracy,  23. 

Nullification  in  South  Carolina,  42. 

Ocean,  control  of  the,  158. 
Oxford   University,  American  Lec 
tures,  9  ;  cotton  relief,  92. 

Palmerston,  see  Temple. 

Peacock,  — ,  on  Proclamation  of 
Emancipation,  108. 

Pclletan,  Eugene,  on  cotton  supre 
macy,  124. 

Pemberton,  John  Clifford,  145. 

Peter  the  Hermit,  80. 

Petersburg,  Va.,  158. 

Plutarch,  history  of  Pyrrhus,  159. 

Pope,  John,  145. 

1  Pope  '  campaign,  98. 

Potter,  Thomas  Bayley,  78. 

Preston,  cotton  famine,  89. 

Proclamation  of  Emancipation,  14, 
19  ;  issue  of,  108  ;  comments  on, 
108,  178. 

Pyrrhus,  death  of,  159. 

Race  hatreds,  175. 


Recognition  of  South  proposed,  99. 

Reconstruction  in  South,  165,  173. 

Rhodes,  James  Ford,  9. 

Rochdale,  meeting  in,  94. 

Roebuck,  John  Arthur,  119. 

Rousseau,  James  Jacques,  80. 

Russell,  John,  Earl,  22,  98;  on 
recognition  of  South,  99 ;  circu 
lar  to  Cabinet,  100. 

Russell,  William  Howard,  20,  175. 

Russia,  mediation,  99. 

Saturday  Review,  19. 

Scotland  and  Mrs.  Stowe,  83. 

Scott,  Winfield,  138. 

Sebastopol,  naval  operations,  16. 

Secession,  War  of,  begun  61 ;  Lee 
on,  137. 

Sedgwick,  John,  151. 

Seward,  William  Henry,  127  ;  in 
structions  to  Adams,  102. 

Sherman,  William  Tecumseh,  145, 
158. 

Slavery,  end  of  human,  14 ;  in 
1820,  41  ;  and  sovereignty,  48  ; 
British  against,  72  ;  disappear 
ing,  81. 

Slavery,  in  War  of  Secession,  20. 

Slaves,  protection  of,  176  ;  conduct 
in  war,  178. 

Smith,  Adam,  on  rebels  and  here 
tics,  173. 

Smith,  Goldwin,  78. 

Socialism,  15. 

South  Carolina  and  nullification, 
42  ;  State's  rights,  138. 

South,  the,  and  State  Sovereignty, 
49;  resources,  62,  69;  confidence, 
63  ;  foreign  support,  69  ;  cotton, 
88. 

Sovereignty.  State,  96,  186 ;  divid 
ed,  43,  47  ;  and  slavery,  48. 

Stanley,  Edward  George  Geoffrey 
Smith,  Earl  of  Derby,  fear  of 
Democracy,  22. 

State  Sovereignty,  29,  45 ;  and 
Home  Rule,  171 ;  in  South,  174. 

State's  rights,  40. 

Stephen,  Leslie,  English  opinion  of 
America,  18. 

Stowe,  Harriet  Beecher,  68,  77,  93  ; 
Uncle  Tom's  Calm,  70,  79,  124; 
European  greetings,  82;  Dred, 
83. 

Suffrage,  under  reconstruction,  174. 


184 


INDEX 


Sutherland,  Duke  and  Duchess  of,    [ 
83. 

Temple,     Henry     John,    Viscount 
Palmerston,    and     Delane,    75; 
proposes  intervention,  99,   129 ; 
dislike    of   Gladstone,    105;    to  j 
await    issue,     107 ;      misappre-  ! 
hends  situation,  114. 

Tennyson,  Alfred,  Lord,  71  ;  on 
Bright,  78. 

Texas,  annexation,  42. 

Thomas,  George  Henry,  138. 

Timeliness,  important,  80. 

Times,  London,  19;  supports  the 
South,  69  ;  influence  of,  73  ;  lan 
guage  of,  74  ;  Uncle  Tonis  Cabin, 
82. 

Toombs,  Robert,  on  '  Uncle  Tom ', 
80. 

Treaties,  standing  of,  51. 

Treaty  of  Washington,  121. 


Ulster,  177. 

Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,  influence  of, 
79,  82,  124,  159. 

Union,  dissolution  of  the,  42,  62. 

United  States,  War  of  Secession, 
Bryce  on,  10  ;  important  results, 
13 ;  Mill  on,  19  ;  memory  of,  59. 

Vicksburg,  fall  of,  145. 

Victoria,  Queen,  98. 

Virginia  and   State's   rights,   137; 

resolutions,  139. 
Virginia,  16. 

Washington,  George,  36.  , 

Washington,  Treaty  of,  121. 
Wilderness,  campaign  in,  153. 
William  of  Orange,  141. 
Wilmington,  N.  C.,  161. 
Wilson,  Woodrow,  President,  27. 
Wolseley,  Garnet,  Lord,  119,  175. 


Oxford  :  Printed  at  the  Clarendon  Press  by  Horace  Hart 


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